


running fast, standing in place (quick breaths, it'll end soon)

by bravestyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Canon Compliant, Crying, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Fainting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:53:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21787813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravestyles/pseuds/bravestyles
Summary: Looking back, Harry can differentiate the stages of it. It started with conscious eating, with trying to know exactly what was in his food and not wanting to put garbage into his body. Gradually, he started to work out more. And then came the restricting, where he slowly reeled back on carbs and fatty foods and sugar. But it wasn't too bad yet. All it was was thinking extra hard about his food choices and avoiding certain things. It was okay.Eventually, it stopped being okay.or,Harry struggles with an eating disorder.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 37
Kudos: 306





	running fast, standing in place (quick breaths, it'll end soon)

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I don't know any of the characters involved and this work is pure fiction. Please don't read if you will be triggered by any of themes mentioned in the tags (stay safe x). Thank you for reading. 
> 
> Title from Half Truths by Joseph.

It didn't start with a snarky comment or a model in a magazine. There were no life-changing epiphanies about being overweight, no diet that went wrong. The hate he receives daily on Twitter didn't suddenly get worse and lead him to starve himself, and Louis still loved him like he always has, so it wasn't that. Harry doesn't really know what set it off.

Maybe it's about control. It's the only thing that makes sense to him, the only possibility he one-hundred percent relates to in those lists of causes he reads on online at night, in secret. As far as he can remember, he started feeling wary about food in the middle of One Direction's first headlining tour. None of them had any privacy or freedom, which could've led him to grasping for control elsewhere, and maybe his eating was the first thing his hands grasped that didn't slip through his fingers. 

Looking back, Harry can differentiate the stages of it. It started with conscious eating, with trying to know exactly what was in his food and not wanting to put garbage into his body. Gradually, he started to work out more. And then came the restricting, where he slowly reeled back on carbs and fatty foods and sugar. But it wasn't too bad yet. All it was was thinking extra hard about his food choices and avoiding certain things. It was okay.

Eventually, it stopped being okay. 

It gradually turned from being conscious about what he was eating to being full-blown obsessed with it. Counting calories, reciting what he had to eat that day so far in his head during interviews, refusing to eat in public. He was only nineteen and at the end of his second tour when he made sure he had two water bottles before each meal so he felt full already. He became a nervous-wreck in regards to anything to do with food; cooking, eating, others eating around him, grocery shopping. He got snappy and irritable, constantly prepared to defend himself about his habits. Nobody ever really asked questions, but he was prepared anyway. 

Somewhere between the Where We Are Now tour and the On The Road Again tour, it became about his weight. The obsession with food never, ever dwindled, not even in the slightest, and then it became paired up with the unexplained urge to be thin. That's when it got reckless. 

It’s not like he didn’t eat. He did, just. . . not as much as he should’ve. Enough to get him through the day, but barely. The life he lived didn’t allow him to just completely stop eating, even if he really, really wished he could. 

***

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: NIGHT TWO. 8 FEBRUARY 2015.

His BMI is inching towards the underweight category. Their stylist took all their measurements the other day, and Harry weighed in at 151 pounds. She gave him a look, one that he completely ignored by staring straight forward, his heart beating roughly in his chest. She looked a mix of concerned and confused. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when she told him he was free to go without saying anything.

Before he dug-deep in this whole starving himself thing, before he felt like fingers were scraping his insides away from his stomach, he weighed 163 pounds. According to some BMI calculator, his is currently 20.3. _ Normal _ . It terrifies him that he's literally shrinking, that soon he'll be firmly in the  _ underweight _ category, but it also fills him up with pride at the same time. It's conflicting. He has no idea how to feel. 

"What time issit?" a voice rasps from beside him. Calmly, Harry closes the tab he was on and turns to look at Louis, who's still cuddled into his side like he was when they went to sleep last night. When he glances up at him, eyes blinking slowly, he looks cozy and well-slept. Harry's jealous; his stomach pains kept him up the majority of the night again. 

He runs a hand through Louis' hair. In response, Louis nuzzles his head back into Harry's clothed stomach. "It's like, eight. We have to leave soon."

"How soon?"

Harry checks his phone. "About forty minutes. We have to go do that radio show, remember?"

Louis makes an unhappy noise that makes it clear that he hadn't remembered, and Harry leans down to kiss the top of his head. 

**

The car ride on the way back is tense. Everything's tense now, with the band. None of them know how to feel about a hiatus, except Zayn, who's absolutely ready for it. He wants it so bad, and Harry wants to remind him they've only just got back on the road, but no one really talks to Zayn anymore unless he's the one to start a conversation. They've been snapped at too many times, and Zayn says a lot of hurtful shit when he's angry. 

Louis, Niall and Liam took the back row while Harry and Zayn took the front. There's an empty chair between them, and it makes Harry feel antsy. He hates when Zayn's sad enough to show it. He selfishly wishes Zayn could fake it all of the time, like Harry does. 

"You pissed at me, mate?" Zayn murmurs about ten minutes into the drive. The other three are rambling on excitedly about football, and Harry's been tuning them out.

Harry shrugs, looking away from the window and towards Zayn. He looks so sad, all puppy eyes and pouty lips. "Not really, no. Why?"

Zayn shrugs back at him. He's tracing something in his front pocket, where Harry knows he keeps his lighter. "You're quiet lately. Was wondering if it's 'cause of me."

"Nope," Harry says, looking back out the window. "Not today, anyway. You'll probably do something to piss me off tomorrow, but."

Zayn laughs lightly. It sounds weird; Harry can't tell if it's because it's been a while since he's heard it, or if it's because it's fake. They're still getting used to being around each other all the time again, and Harry will soon be able to put his finger on it as quick as a bullet a few more days into the tour. 

"You and Louis get in a fight, then?"

He looks back at Zayn. Normally, he doesn't give a shit about them anymore. Anxiety gnaws on Harry's stomach. "I'm good, mate. A little tired, but good. Are  _ you _ alright?"

"Fine, yeah. Just worried about you."

It's uncharacteristically honest. Zayn doesn't  _ worry  _ about them anymore. He snaps and picks fights and tells them all he hates this stupid fucking band, and that’s about it anymore. 

"Well, don't," Harry snaps, defensive. "You're cheating on your  fiancée  every other night, fighting with your best mates for no reason, and day-drinking. I reckon you should be worrying about yourself."

Zayn scoffs, rolls his eyes, and turns his entire body away from him. Harry feels lightheaded, a mixture of starvation and fear. That's the first real time someone questioned him like that. Louis sometimes makes little comments here and there, but Harry knows for certain that he doesn't know or suspect anything that relates to his eating. But Zayn. . . maybe Zayn is too much like him, maybe he'll be the first to pinpoint Harry's problems, and that's terrifying. 

Louis must realize the two of them got into another scuffle, because a hand comes from the backseat to squeeze his shoulder. 

ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA. 17 FEBRUARY 2015. 

There's almost nothing worse than having to go out on stage and put on a show when Louis' mad at him. For one, Harry just generally hates when Louis' cross with him, no matter where they are or what they have to do. But more importantly for the fans, it throws off the entire band's dynamic, because now Louis' snappy and Niall doesn't want to get in the middle of them and Liam doesn't want to accidentally make anything worse. The awkward tension between the four of them grows as they wait backstage together, watching the opening act like always. It gets so suffocating that Harry tells them he's going to find Zayn. 

"Just let 'em come," Louis snaps, looking at him with narrowed eyes. Right now, he's more angry with Zayn than Harry. "He hasn't skipped a show yet. Don't think he's gone off it that much."

Harry sighs. "You're the only one he confides in anymore, Louis, don't take that for granted." He doesn't mean it viciously; it's the simple truth. Zayn and Louis have a bond that Zayn doesn't have anymore with anyone else, and they need _ something _ keeping him here.

"Maybe all I need to do to get you to open up to me again is get you high," Louis says coldly, still looking out at the stage. "Works with Zayn."

Harry takes a step back, annoyed. "For the millionth time, you're just being paranoid."

Louis scoffs, but it sounds sort of sad. He finally looks to Harry again, and he looks sad, too. "This is exactly how it started with Zayn. He just put up a fucking wall, with all of us, and now that's exactly what you're doing."

His palms feel sweaty and his heart races. That scares him on top of everything else, because he's terrified of dropping dead of a heart attack. It's not uncommon, Harry's read, for people with eating disorders to starve themselves bad enough to kill their heart. 

"I'm not Zayn," he says thickly. 

The defeated look Liam gives him shows he agrees with Louis. Harry can convince Louis he's being paranoid for no real reason, that Harry hasn't changed at all, but he can't convince them all of that. He's being cornered. 

"We're not doing this before a show," he mutters, before turning on his heel and wandering off to find Zayn. Now, he's not using Zayn as an excuse to get out of there anymore, he actually wants to find him, to look him in the eye and see if can see himself.

Zayn's a shell of who he used to be. He's rapidly getting worse, too, and Niall told Zayn quietly that he's scared he's going to go off himself or something the other day. Zayn had promised them all he hadn't even thought of that, and it was the most sincere he's been since the car in Sydney. Harry doesn't want Louis or any of them to have to worry about him like they all worry about Zayn.

He doesn't want to be like him, but maybe he is. Maybe they've always been alike and he's never realized it until now. 

God, he's being overdramatic, isn't he? His brain spirals more than normal when he's hungry. 

A dizzy spell hits him out of nowhere as he's walking down a long hallway, and he's used to this by now, so he forces himself to continue forward normally. He'd eaten an apple and crackers this morning, but he finds his body becomes more and more demanding the longer he keeps this up. 

When he turns a corner, he and Zayn almost bump into each other. 

"Sorry," Zayn mumbles, going to move out of the way and continue forward. 

Harry frowns, following him back towards the direction of the stage. "I was looking for you."

Zayn shoves his hands in his pockets. He reeks of smoke, but the smell doesn't really bother Harry like it used to because of Louis. "Why? It's not like I'd just ditch you all like that." After a moment of thought, he shrugs. "Maybe I would, I dunno. But I guess tonight's your lucky night, 'cause I didn't split."

Zayn goes to walk passed him, but Harry grabs his arm to stop him. Zayn makes it clear he doesn't want to talk right now by looking at the ground and shaking Harry's hand off.

"We want you here for more reasons than the band, obviously," Harry tells him slowly. "You know that, right?"

"When's the last time you lot invited me anywhere?" He doesn’t even look accusatory, just defeated. 

It strikes Harry, because he struggles for an answer. "Yesterday?"

"That was a band meeting, doesn't count."

Harry shrugs jerkily. "You and Louis go and smoke all the time."

."So, what?" Zayn snaps, looking up at him suddenly. "Is that what you all do, make Louis take the fall by dealing with me?"

"Not at all," Harry promises, and before he can explain more, he catches Zayn's expression softening a bit. Before Harry can feel out what's changed, Zayn's telling him. 

"You look paler than normal."

Harry's stomach twists nervously. He'd noticed that earlier and has been waiting for someone to point it out all day. "We haven't been in Australia long enough for me to tan, mate." He waves an exaggerated hand around, giving his nerves away. He's had that phrase ready the entire day. 

"You sure you're feeling alright?"

"Fine, yeah."

Zayn nibbles on his bottom lip for a moment before decided it’s okay to ask, "Why won't you have sex with Louis anymore?"

Harry physically flinches, as if he's been hit. He takes an involuntary step back. He wasn't expecting that, wasn't expecting it at all. What kind of question is that? 

"He told you that?" Harry asks, too shocked to hide his worry. 

Zayn nods. Harry's heart sinks.

"When we were smoking last night, he said you barely let him touch you anymore,” Zayn tells him. “I'm not going to lie, Haz, he sounded really upset. And I share a wall with you two, you know. I heard you arguing this morning about how you keep shutting him out."

"He's just being paranoid," Harry snaps, repeating that for what feels like the hundredth time today. "Making a problem when there is none, and -- "

"It's not like you to talk like that about him," Zayn points out calmly, as if it's just a passing observation. He begins walking forward again, and -- oh, right, they have a show to perform soon. He is in no mood to go on stage, but he has people counting on him, and it's not like he has a choice. 

After a moment, Zayn murmurs, "Just. . . whatever it is, mate, whatever you aren't telling him -- if you aren't willing to talk to him about it, don't make it obvious that something's wrong. Don't force him to worry about you."

Harry snorts, crossing his arms. "Are you telling me I need to become a better liar in order to get my boyfriend to stop caring about me? 'Cause if you think that's how relationships work, mate, no wonder why you and Perrie are almost over."

Zayn shrugs, not even caring a little about Harry's dig. Why would he? It's true, and entirely Zayn's fault. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Take it or leave it, I don't care either way."

Harry rolls his eyes at his retreating figure, but an hour later when Louis' shooting him a worried look, he can see Zayn's point. 

**

Harry's not naive anymore; he knows that he's lying to Louis. As much as he hates to admit it, it's true. Telling him he has already eaten, that he's not hungry, that nothing's the matter -- those are all lies. Not half-truths, not white lies, but bold, premeditated lies. There's no denying that. 

But, as Louis fucks into him faster and harder than normal, probably because they haven't had sex in a while, Harry can't quite tell if this counts as a lie.

When they got back to the hotel, Harry had one goal: getting Louis into bed with him so he would stop worrying about him and, more importantly, stop feeling insecure about it enough to go to Zayn with it. It wasn't exactly hard; Louis was horny and still running on adrenaline, and Harry coming on to him was probably an emotional comfort, too. But for Harry, it feels wrong, and he feels dirty, and like a cheat. Louis thinks Harry's just horny too, when in reality, all he's trying to do is coerce Louis into thinking something that's not the truth. 

If not a lie, it's definitely manipulation. And manipulation and sex shouldn't be used in the same sentence, especially not with someone he cares so deeply about. He doesn’t know what he’s becoming. 

"You good?" Louis asks, breathless. One hand is on the headboard while the other is holding himself up, so he's hovering over Harry while Harry lays on the bed, just taking it. Harry's hard, obviously, and he's letting out involuntary little moans every few seconds because it  _ does _ still feel good, just not good enough. Louis' probably very aware of the fact that Harry isn't pulling on his hair or tugging him down for a kiss or dragging his nails down his back like he normally does.

Basically, he's not putting on a good enough act. Louis must think it's because of him, when in reality, he just can't get out of his own head. 

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding. He wraps an arm around Louis' neck and pulls him closer like he normally would. Louis starts nibbling at his neck, sucking marks there that they will get in trouble for tomorrow Like this, Louis can't see his face, so he feels less forced to act a certain way. He just lays there, thinking about stupid things that don't matter nearly as much as Louis does, yet he can't stop himself. 

Afterwards, Harry tells Louis he's going out to eat with Zayn while Louis showers, which Louis makes a face at. Normally Harry keeps the boys out of his lies, because that leaves too much room to be caught. For some reason, though, Harry's beginning to feel like him and Zayn are bonding over Harry being an idiot, so he's sure Zayn will cover for him if necessary. Zayn can be good like that. 

He does go to Zayn's hotel room, he's just not going to eat there. Since Zayn's room is next to theirs, it doesn't take long to get there. It takes knocking twice for Zayn to open the door. 

Zayn's obviously tired and agitated, so he's probably not going to be in the mood to talk much. "You need something?"

"No, just wanted to chill," Harry murmurs, embarrassed. Zayn can see right through him. He's pretty sure everyone can see right through him, but Zayn's one of the best at sifting through his bullshit. And he's also the only one who will call him out on it. 

He nods once, looking bored. After a pause, he moves out of the way so Harry can come in, and then goes straight for the balcony. The smell of weed is clinging to him and his hotel room, and Harry's not exactly surprised when Zayn sits down and starts smoking a joint. He doesn't offer it to Harry, although Harry would've declined anyway, so it doesn't matter. 

Harry sits on the chair beside Zayn's, and pulls his knees up. It's quiet before Zayn sighs. 

"You and Louis still fighting?"

"No."

"Why are you here then? I don't mind, but." He stretches his legs out before crossing them at his ankles. Right now, he's not as tense as he normally is, probably due to the joint. It makes Harry relax a little too. "I don't like you dodging him like this."

Harry looks at him sharply. "I'm not dodging him, he's in the shower. I just wanted to see what you were doing."

"Bullshit, but okay," Zayn mumbles, taking another hit. He coughs quietly. "Just, whatever's going on with you, like. Just tell me it's not between you and him."

"It's not."

"Good." He sounds relieved, almost. "'Cause you and Louis getting together is the only good thing that has ever come out of this band."

That's not true, but Harry doesn't correct him. There's no point. This band is like Harry's child, though it's all grown up now and it's not something that needs to be protected so viciously anymore. 

"We fucked," Harry mumbles, setting his head back on the chair. He doesn't know why he told Zayn. There's nothing particular he wants Zayn to say back. For some reason, it feels like he has to tell someone  _ something _ . And Zayn will be the one who asks the least questions. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"That not a good thing? You don't seem very happy."

Harry goes quiet again. He doesn't know what to say, how to explain it without telling him everything. Because it's not about Louis seeing his body, it's not. There's no avoiding that, and strangely enough, he's not completely ashamed of his body. It's quite contradictory with what he's doing; he supposes nothing about this makes sense. It's not about being naked that makes Harry wary of sex, it's something else. It's like a side effect of starving, or something, the sensation of feeling like you're so far away from yourself that nothing feels right anymore. 

"I feel like I don't know who I am anymore," Harry whispers, little thought behind what Zayn could take from the words. He stares straight forward, watching the busy streets beneath him. 

Zayn hums. "That's okay. You don't need to. Just as long as you're not gonna do anything stupid because of it."

Harry rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to off myself. I don't think I'm depressed like that."

"Like that? Like what?" Zayn asks.

Harry glances at him. "Like you. I don't think I'm sad like you."

"I think you don't want to be," he replies carefully, "but maybe you are. And maybe you don't like it because you see how everyone hates me now, and you don't want them to hate you, too."

That's not it. At least, Harry's pretty sure it isn't. Nobody treats Zayn any different because he's depressed, they treat him different because he's acting like a little shit and threatening everything they've crafted so carefully over the years. But Harry doesn't correct him, because he doesn't have a clue about anything. Lately, he always feels two steps behind everyone else. 

OSAKA, JAPAN. 24 FEBRUARY 2015.

He's extremely dizzy when he wakes up in the morning. It feels like he's in the middle of a boat that's rocking back and forth rapidly, and there's nothing,  _ nothing _ , to hold on to. His stomach is churning violently, and he'd stumble out of bed to go sit in front of the toilet to make sure he'd have somewhere to puke, but his body is going to find there's nothing to throw up, so there’s no real point. He hasn't eaten in three whole days, and normally he tries not to not eat for an entire day multiple days in a row -- it's too hard on his entire body and not practical for his lifestyle -- but they had a few days off between Australia and Japan, and the opportunity presented itself, so he simply decided not to eat. 

Louis and him got in another fight last night, and now Louis' on the other side of the bed, as far away as possible. Louis' absolutely going crazy from knowing that Harry's hiding something from him and being able to put his finger on it. And as bad as it probably sounds, Harry doesn't care if Louis' mad at him for it, so long as he doesn't figure out what he's doing. 

A stronger wave of nausea and dizziness hits him so hard that he feels like he could pass out. Times like this make him terrified, make him want to curl up somewhere where he can protect himself  _ from _ himself and never come out. There's no place like that, though, and the closest thing he has that could ever make him feel better right now is Louis. 

Slowly and carefully, Harry maneuvers himself across the bed. No matter how slow he moves, it feels like his head is spinning at a hundred miles per hour, and he nearly cries in relief when he settles himself against Louis' warm, solid body. He tucks his pounding head into Louis' shoulder blade and tries to focus on breathing evenly. 

Louis wakes a few minutes later, probably from the way Harry's arms are clutching tightly around his middle. He mumbles something Harry can't understand and tries to push away Harry's arms, but Harry keeps them locked around Louis' stomach. The way he wants Louis to take care of him makes him feel childish and small.

"Haz, come on, 'm still pissed at you," Louis mumbles tiredly, squirming away. When he finally successfully shimmies out of Harry's grasp, he sits on the side of the bed while he checks his phone. He taps on the screen a few dozen times before putting his phone back on the nightstand, and then gets out of bed and goes over to their luggage, grabs his pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lights one and takes a long drag from it. It's allowed, since they're in a smoking room per Louis' request, but Harry still hates it. He's been smoking a lot more than usual lately. 

Harry lays there in the middle of the bed feeling stupid and sick, and he wants to badly to tell Louis that he feels like his brain has detached itself and is currently spinning around loosely and fast, knocking at his skull every few seconds, but he doesn't. Louis' mad at him, and Harry can't take that any kind of rejection right now. 

"Forgot to tell you," Louis says around his cigarette. "Think your mum's worried about you. She called me yesterday, when you were at the gym. Said she hasn't heard from you in a while. So call her today and ease her nerves a bit, yeah?" Harry closes his eyes, and it almost makes him feel worse but he doesn't reopen them. "Guess you can't call me paranoid anymore, because she knows something's up, too."

Harry doesn't respond, and Louis mutters a quiet _ well, fuck you too, then, _ before walking into the bathroom. After a few minutes, there's a flush and then the sound of a shower. It nearly makes Harry cry. He just wants Louis to hold him. 

By the time Louis comes out, naked and dripping wet, the dizziness has subsided but has left terrible nausea and an even worse headache in its wake. He's huddled up in the blankets and clinging to a pillow,  _ Louis'  _ pillow, and he tries to focus on the sounds of Louis getting dressed to make his brain concentrate on something other than the pangs of pain. It doesn't work. 

Louis comes back into bed and flicks on the TV. He clicks through the channels until he finds something that's in English, and the volume is sort of high and makes Harry's headache worse. But Louis being close to him makes him feel a sliver better, even though he's not touching him. 

"You asleep?" Louis whispers, no more than ten minutes later. 

Harry debates answering. After a moment, he cracks his eyes open and makes a small noise of acknowledgement. Louis' looking down at him, and he still looks pissed. 

Everything becomes too much then, and Harry explodes. 

"I'm  _ sorry _ , okay?" Harry snaps, sitting up. He feels dizzy again for a second, but it goes away. Louis looks surprised, and Harry wants to ask him  _ why _ . Louis wants to fight, so fine. Here's his fight. "I don't know what you want from me, I don't know why I'm never fucking _ good enough _ for you anymore, but I'm so bloody sick of you being so mad at me all of the time. I haven't done anything wrong, okay? _ You're  _ the one making us like this,  _ you're  _ the one making us fight. I hate fighting with you, you know that, so stop making me."

Louis' eyes are narrowed at him. "You're not good enough for me? Since when, Harry? When have I ever said that?"

"All you ever do is yell at me!"

"Because you're not talking to me!" Louis shotus back. "You're shutting me out, you're shutting your mum out, your sister, the boys. The only person in the entire fucking world you seem to want to talk to anymore is  _ Zayn _ . What's that about, huh? You should be pissed at him like the rest of us."

"He doesn't yell at me." Harry sniffles, feeling like he's going to cry. That'll just makes his headache worse.

"I don't want to yell at you. I try not to, I try to understand, but you don't tell me anything."

Harry groans, frustrated. "Because there's nothing to tell! I'm  _ fine _ !"

"You've started weaponizing sex against me," Louis argues venomously. Harry shrinks at that; the amount of times he's shut Louis up with sex in the last four or five days is almost impressive. "I don't like that, Harry. I don't like when I can't tell if you actually want to fuck, or if you're just doing it to please me or something."

"I don't want you mad at me," he says weakly. 

Louis makes a face at that. "Don't do that, Harry, shit. Don't make me feel like I've been, like, taking advantage of you or something."

"You haven't. It's not like that."

"You can't just throw yourself at me so I don't get angry. I'm allowed to be angry."

Harry starts to cry then, even though he tries really hard not to. It's just, his head hurts and his stomach is in knots and Louis' mad at him and he's not fucking  _ good enough  _ anymore, and he keeps hurting the one person he wants most in the world, and he wants to throw up or drown in his tears because everything sucks right now. 

Louis sighs, and he pulls away Harry's hands from his face so he can wipe at his tears. Harry lets him, sniffing pitifully, and when Louis realizes Harry's not going to stop crying anytime soon, he pulls him into his side and strokes at his hair, shushing him quietly. 

"You never used to cry when we argued," Louis says quietly. He grabs the blanket and drapes it over them. 

Harry sniffles again. "I don't feel good."

"What's wrong, babe?"

"'m just super nauseous and I've got a giant headache." 

"You pregnant?" Louis jokes, and it makes Harry smile a little. "You need something? Water, meds, whatever."

"No, I'm okay," he murmurs. He'll eat something to ease his body's panic when Louis won't be around so he won't see him throw it up, because that happens sometimes. Not on purpose, obviously, but it happens. "I'm okay," he says again, and then Louis starts to hum softly, lulling Harry to sleep.

At first, telling Louis about him feeling ill seemed harmless. It's not like Louis would jump from a stomach ache to an eating disorder, and Harry wanted the comfort. But when Zayn comes around looking for Louis, and Louis tells him Harry's feeling sick, it seems more possible that Zayn will connect the dots. He's the closest to the mess in Harry's head, the only one who Harry has admitted to that something was wrong. 

Zayn knows that Harry's feeling worn down and scared. He knows Harry doesn't feel great about himself. Harry texted him two nights ago saying  _ "maybe I am sad like you"  _ because he had felt so numb and defeated all at the same time, and it's exactly what Zayn looks like everyday. Harry tells Zayn most of the mental shit, but now that Louis' giving him another piece of the puzzle that exposes the physical aspect of it, too, it's not going to take long for Zayn to figure it out. 

"Can we still smoke?" Zayn asks, pretending not to care. The look he gives Harry when Louis’ back is turned shows that he does. 

Louis rolls his eyes. "Would it kill you to be sober for _ one  _ show this tour?" He gets out of bed and digs through his suitcase before motioning for Zayn to go wait on the balcony. He goes, and Louis turns to Harry. "You feeling any better, babe?"

"Yeah." It's been three hours since Louis held him first, and the headache has gone but the nausea is still clawing at his stomach. He should eat now, while he has the privacy to freak out and won't have to do it later in front of people. Because he's going to have to eat today, he knows that. This can't escalate to not eating for days on end. 

So Louis goes outside with Zayn and Harry closes the curtains before ordering room service. He orders a small chicken salad, partly because he's scared that anything heavier than that will make him throw up and partly because he's still extremely strict about what he puts into his body. 

Once the food arrives, he thanks the man who brought it and settles in bed with it. He turns up the volume on the TV to try and ease his anxiety. The fork seems heavy and the food seems daunting, and he wants to cry with how much he fucking hates himself. Eating shouldn't be scary or difficult, he shouldn't have let himself get this far. He knows he should tell someone, anyone; he's not in fucking denial about being sick. Being hyper-aware about what he was eating was one thing, but starving himself is entirely different. 

"Just fucking eat it, dammit," he tells himself, cringing at how wet and hoarse his voice is. He won't cry, he won't. It's just  _ eating. _ Humans are literally  _ designed _ to eat. He'll  _ die _ without eating. He really, really doesn't want to die. But at this rate, his heart will give out by twenty-five or he'll pass out and hit his head and bleed to death. Louis would probably be the one to find him, and then he'd fuck up Louis' entire life, too, and his mum's -- God, his  _ mum _ , how could he do this to his mother? She deserves a strong son, one that she can count on.

He shovels the food into his mouth as fast as he can and without thinking too much about it.  _ Chew, chew, chew, next.  _ That's all he lets himself think, because anything else makes it hard to breathe. 

Once he's done, his stomach is in knots and he genuinely fears he's going to throw up. He pushes the food cart away and curls back up in bed, knees tucked towards his chest in hopes to ease his stomach pains. He does cry then, but only until Zayn and Louis come back inside, reeking of weed. The stench makes his stomach roll violently. 

SAITAMA, JAPAN. 28 FEBRUARY 2015.

He's going to tell Zayn today. After the show, he's going to tell Louis he's not in the mood to go party with the others, and Louis' going to tell him okay, and Zayn's going to reject his offer, too. He'll wait fifteen minutes after they get back to the hotel room, and then he'll find Zayn and spill everything, because he's scaring himself and he can't take it anymore. 

Harry hasn't eaten anything since that chicken salad, aside from some fruit last night. That's three days without eating, three days of constant headaches and stomach pains and hating himself. He and Louis got into another fight this morning, and Harry's still feeling the repercussions of it. 

"I just want to know what's wrong!" Louis had screamed, face red. "Can you please just  _ tell  _ me, for fuck's sake, I can't keep doing this!"

"Stop yelling at me!" Harry shouted back, feeling small. 

"Are you cheating on me, or something?" Louis fired back, and at first it bounced off Harry's skin. Louis' just mad, and Louis says stupid things when he's mad, and that was just another one. But when Harry went to snap something back and got a good look at Louis' face, he knew he actually believed that. 

"Louis, of course not," he whispered, which looking back on, only made him look guilty. 

"I don't fucking believe you!" Louis had sounded so raw, so hurt that it made Harry's ears ring. "You constantly look guilty, Harry, and it's the only explanation I can come up with."

"I'm not cheating on you! Why would I do that? When would I even have the _ time _ to do that?"

Louis stayed silent, chest heaving, and Harry had burst into tears for no other reason than he felt like a piece of shit. Louis had cursed, and immediately came over to comfort him, but Harry had pushed him away. 

"I can't keep fucking do this," Louis had hissed. "You're scaring me, Harry!"

Harry had given him a nasty look, and through shaky, choked words, he screamed back, "I'm scaring  _ myself,  _ okay? I'm scared, too!"

Louis looked wounded. He looked very serious, then. "You aren't going to, like, hurt yourself or something, are you? You’d. . . you’d never do that, right?"

Harry threw his hands up, tears running down his cheeks. "Why's that everyone's first question?"

After that, Louis apologized for yelling and Harry had apologized for being a dick, and normally, they'd go back to normal after that, but Louis' been cautious around him all day.

The shows no different. Louis lingers, and he stares, and he laughs too loudly at Harry's stupid jokes. Harry completely ignores all of it, because he doesn't want to have to deal with management reminding them to keep it down a notch. It's humiliating and depressing when that happens. 

After the show's no different, Harry fears Louis' not going to let him stay in their hotel room alone while all the others go out, but he does. Reluctantly and hesitantly, but he does. And then Harry finds himself staring at the clock, two minutes left of the fifteen minutes he'd given himself, and he's bloody terrified. 

Zayn's not going to judge him, he knows that. He's not going to call him dumb or think he's weak, and he's not going to tell Louis if Harry asks him not to. It's just not how Zayn operates. So Harry can't figure out why he's so scared to tell him. 

He sits there, paralyzed with fear, until his fifteen minutes are up. He forces himself to stand and remain blank-minded all the way to Zayn's hotel room. He's scared he'll convince himself to turn around, and he can't. Someone needs to know, even if it's someone as temporary as Zayn could turn out to be. 

When he knocks on the door, tears spring to his eyes. There's no going back now. He can't turn around and leave in time for Zayn not to notice, and then Zayn would be suspicious and ask questions. 

Zayn opens the door. Harry's stomach lurches. 

"Hey, bro," Zayn mumbles. He looks tired. "Wanna come in?"

Harry nods, and they both walk inside. Zayn gives the usual warning that he's smoking, and as always, Harry stays he doesn't care. This time, though, Harry accepts his offer of sharing a joint. It’ll probably help him calm down a bit, he supposes. Zayn gives him a look, but he doesn't say anything and passes Harry one that was sitting in an ashtray. 

They smoke in silence for a good half hour. Harry always goes pliant and light when he's high, which is why he doesn't smoke too much. It makes him feel too disconnected with himself, too alien in his own body. But that's exactly what he wants right now.

His legs are tossed over Zayn's lap and Zayn's rubbing at his knee lazily, like he's not fully aware he's doing it. Harry's starting straight up at the ceiling, his back aching against the stiff couch, while Zayn's staring forward at the TV. Unlike him, Zayn doesn't care if he's watching something in a different language. 

"Hey, Zayn?" he says. His voice is teeny, and he's scared he's not going to hear him. Thankfully, he does. 

"Yeah?"

He digs his teeth into the inside of his cheek and closes his eyes. Zayn's rubbing becomes more insistent. It gives him the courage he needs. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. 

"I haven't eaten in three days."

Everything stops. It feels like it does, anyway. But the only thing that really does is Zayn's hand. The TV is still blaring, the joint in Zayn's hand is still smoking, there's still noise from the hallway spilling into the room. 

Harry holds his breath, terrified. 

Zayn's hand starts moving again after a long minute. It seems more stiff now, like Zayn's unsure what to do. "That on purpose?" he asks, slow. 

"Yes."

"That's a dangerous game to play, Haz."

"I know."

"How long?"

He swallows thickly. "Since after the last tour. But I haven't been able to eat right since I was sixteen, I think."

"Shit, Harry."

It goes quiet. Perhaps there's just nothing left to say anymore. Zayn's not the type of person that'd bombard him with a thousand questions, or tell him off for being so stupid. When he's not lashing out, Zayn's a sensitive, anxious person that tries his best to keep everyone happy. Or maybe Harry's looking too far into things and Zayn's actually too high to formulate a proper response. 

The silence stretches on, and neither of them break it until Harry's phone lights up with a call from Louis. He sits up, legs aching from where they've been uncomfortably laying on Zayn's lap. He answers the call, and tells a very drunk Louis that he'll be back to their room shortly. Once he hangs up, he sits there, knowing Zayn's going to say something. 

He does. "We should go out for breakfast tomorrow, or something."

Harry smiles thinly, not looking at him. "That a joke?"

"No, it's not." Zayn comes closer to him and there's shoulders touch. He wants Harry to look at him, but he doesn't. "Look, skipping meals every once and a while is one thing. Going days without eating is something entirely different. You can't -- that's gonna do serious damage to your health, if you keep this up long-term."

"I'm terrified my heart's just gonna give out," Harry admits, finally turning slightly to look at Zayn. "I don't think I've been doing it long enough for that to happen, but it scares the shit out of me. I don't -- " he fumbles with words. Zayn sets a hand on his knee and squeezes. "This isn't about, like. It's not a way for me to hurt myself, or something. That's not my intention."

"That's good, but. . . but, like. Either way, it's what you're doing, you know?"

"I know," Harry whispers. He imagines that he can feel his veins being drained of blood as they speak, that right now, his muscles are shrinking rapidly and his heart is slowing and his nails are thinning and he can feel it all, somehow. He can't. That's not how this works, it's all in his head, but that seems to be where the worst of things happen. 

"You need to tell Louis, Harry." It's stern, like he really thinks that's the best thing to do next. It's not; Louis will rip him off this tour so fast, force him back home to London and keep him huddled under a stack of blankets away from the rest of the word. 

Harry shrugs lightly and looks forward. "He knows I'm hiding something from him."

"They all do." Zayn sighs at the devastated expression on Harry's face after he says that. "None of them have any idea as to why, but they all know you're like, distant. Liam made a group chat a few nights ago."

"Great," he says sarcastically. He’s not exactly surprised to hear that, though; if Louis thinks something’s wrong, that’s bound to make the hairs on the back of Niall and Liam’s neck stand up, too. He’s the leader of them, in a way. He goes and they follow. 

"Louis thinks I'm cheating on him,” Harry mumbles, ashamed to even say it. 

Zayn makes a noise close to a laugh. "I doubt he actually thinks that. Might just be trying to shake the truth out of you."

"That's not fair," Harry murmurs. 

Zayn scoffs, but doesn't say anything. There's no point; Harry knows he's not being fair to Louis, either. That doesn't mean he appreciates being called out on his hypocrisy, though. 

HONG KONG, ASIA. 18 MARCH 2015.

It's already quiet. Harry knew that after their last show with Zayn would be shit, that everyone would be on edge and snippy, but he didn't expect the silence to come so quickly. There wasn't a fight afterwards; everyone just went to their respective rooms quietly, and that was that. The band became a four-piece as soon as they walked off stage, and nobody knows how to react to it. 

Louis' moody silence made Harry antsy, so he told Louis he was going to go for a walk. Louis had looked defeated when he left but didn't say anything. He gave up on pulling answers from Harry a while ago, and now whenever Harry's being closed off and mysterious, he just lets it happen. 

He thinks about going to Zayn's hotel room for one last depressing conversation, but decides against it. There's no point. Everything Harry told Zayn means nothing now, because as soon as Zayn leaves, Harry's not going to talk to him for a long time. All the progress he made, all the opening-up he was doing is going to leave with Zayn. 

He ends up eating in the mostly-empty cafe downstairs. There's only one other person there, and he makes sure to sit as far from the person as possible. He orders a bagel with no cream cheese and fruit, and eats it quietly by himself. Zayn made him promise to eat at least one meal a day, and Harry hasn't done his one meal yet today, so here he is. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket, the second time since he sat down. He pulls it out this time, and sees two texts. One is from Louis saying  _ goodnight love, please turn the telly off when u get back _ and one from Zayn saying  _ i really wanna talk to you mate.  _

He ignores both, and he's about to put his phone away when Zayn calls him. Harry hesitates before answering, because he has no real reason not to. There's nothing fair about making Zayn feel guilty for not being able to be Harry's emotional crutch anymore. 

"Hullo," Harry mumbles. He stabs a strawberry with his fork and lets it stay there. 

"You're not with Louis, are you?" is Zayn's hello back, and it makes Harry laugh. 

"No, 'm not. You that afraid of him, mate?"

Zayn grumbles something that Harry can't make sense of. "I just don't like disappointing him, is all," Zayn says, sounding strangely vulnerable. "You know how it is. He's not a person you wanna disappoint."

Harry nods to himself, but doesn't say anything because Zayn did. Zayn disappointed them  _ all, _ and thousands of others. 

"Where are you, then?" 

"Cafe in the hotel," he answers, and then kicks himself for it. He still has half a bagel and some fruit left; he won't be able to eat in front of Zayn. "I'd rather you not come, though."

"As long as you're eating, I don't care," Zayn says. After a hesitant moment, he sighs loudly. "I'm glad you've stuck to the whole at least one meal a day thing, mate, but I hope you realize I meant that as a starting point. Like, I thought you'd work your way up to eat normally again. It's almost been a month, and you're still eating like shit."

Harry's face drops. That's not what he wants to hear. He's been making progress; small, slow progress, but progress nonetheless. He liked the idea of having a goal for himself everyday, one that he can actually meet. Eating once a day gets him through the day, but also keeps him as thin and healthy as possible. (Not healthy, he mentally corrects himself. But not falling over dead.)

"Look, H," Zayn starts. He sounds cautious. "I really can't have you falling off the wagon 'cause of me."

"The fuck does that even mean?"

A sigh comes over the phone. "Just, like. . . I don't want to leave, and then find out a month later you've overdone it and hurt yourself somehow. You've been doing better. I don't want you to get bad again."

Harry stays silent. He can't promise anything, not when Zayn's leaving him like this. So suddenly, and so brutally. 

"I can't stay just for you," Zayn whispers. "I want you to get better, man, I really do. But I can't sit around being fuckin' miserable just so I can hold your hand through all this."

"Oh, fuck off," Harry hisses. He keeps his voice low, and turns his head away from the other person eating. "You've been the one I've confided in, sure, but you have nowhere near 'held my hand through all this'. I'm the one doing all the work. Don't get that fucking twisted."

"Someone's snippy."

"I'm not gonna completely go off the rails when you leave," Harry continues. "I'm gonna be the exact same, because contrary to what you believe, you barely help. You make me feel less alone and less crazy, yeah, but I've been going through this for years and I never needed anyone before."

Zayn makes a sarcastic sounding noise. "Alright, whatever. Just wanted to make sure we were good."

"We're not good. You're hurting my career, and my friends, and my boyfriend. We're far from good."

"Put the fucking claws away, would you?" Zayn snaps. "You have a right to be angry, I get that, but I'm trying to make you're gonna be fine."

Harry feels inappropriately amused by that, for some reason. He sits back in his chair, his appetite gone. The food will be gone before he leaves, it will, because it doesn't count as a full meal unless it's completely gone. But now it's going to take a lot longer. 

"You want your conscious clean," Harry says calmly. "If I end up dying or losing everything because of what I'm doing, you want to make sure you won't have my blood on your hands."

There's silence for a few seconds. Finally, Zayn says, "Yeah. I guess you're right."

"You weren't always this selfish."

"No. No, I wasn't. But I am now. And I need to hear you say you won't blame me if anything happens."

A swirl of fear and sadness knocks at Harry's heart. He doesn't like someone else believing something really bad can come of all this. "I won't," he says softly, because anything else wouldn't be right. "I won't."

"Thank you." Zayn sounds relieved, which irritates Harry. Zayn can just leave this all behind him, but Harry can't.  _ Harry _ is the problem; he can't exactly just walk away from himself. 

"Am I really that much of a burden?"

"No," he replies immediately, sounding pained. "No, Harry. Not at all. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to stop being there for you."

Tears collect in his eyes. "Can I like. . . could I like, maybe call you sometimes?"

"Of course. Yes. Of course. Any time."

He sniffles, feeling pathetic. "I'm probably gonna ignore you for a long time. But like, if I ever need someone really badly, I'll call you, okay? I promise. And I need you to promise you'll answer me, because if I'm calling your stupid arse, it's serious."

"I promise, Harry. I promise."

"Okay," Harry whispers. 

"Okay," Zayn whispers back.

They sit in quiet for about two minutes before Harry finally disconnects the call. He refuses to let any tears fall, so he pulls himself together and finishes his food. Once he's done, he leaves the waitress a tip and goes back to his hotel room, feeling stupidly lost. 

Once he's inside, he turns off the TV like Louis asked and strips down to his underwear. He crawls into bed with Louis, who's sound asleep in the middle of it. He does that a lot when Harry can't be there with him when he falls asleep. That way, Harry will have to wake him up and ask him to move, and Louis can say goodnight to him in person. 

Harry was going to wake him up regardless, because he's sad and wants to be comforted. So he curls into Louis' side and whispers his name a bunch of times until he wakes up, bleary eyed and tired. 

"Hey, darling," Louis mumbles. He moves over onto his side so Harry can have more room, but Harry just follows him and tucks himself back into him. Louis runs his hand down Harry's bare back and then settles for keeping it on his waist. "How does a guy have such a teeny waist?" he asks, sounded amused. "You're all tall and broad, but you've got this teeny little waist."

Harry tries not to tense up too much and to let himself be doted on. He's always had a small waist, and Louis has always adored him because of it. 

"You upset about Zayn?" Louis asks, once Harry doesn't respond. Harry makes a small noise in response, and Louis sighs. "Don't be. I mean, you can be if you want to, but it's gonna be fine. The band is going to be fine, the other boys are going to be fine. Even Zayn's gonna be fine, with whatever he gets up to."

Tears burn his eyes again. He presses his face against Louis' chest . A small, shaky breath comes from him before he can stop it. 

Louis squeezes his waist. "I should kill him for making you this upset." It's supposed to be a joke, but Louis sounds like he means it a little anyway. 

"It's not just him," he murmurs quietly. He could tell him now. He could just. . . tell him everything he told Zayn. But he thinks the world's about to be rocked enough with the shock of Zayn leaving, so maybe he shouldn't add to that. 

"I wish I knew how to help you, Haz."

"I don't need help," Harry denies. "Just cuddles."

So Louis cuddles him, and in all honesty, it really is all Harry needs right now. 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 14 JANUARY 2016.

"I just don't see why you don't want to go home for your birthday," Louis says, sounding stressed. They're in bed, only having woken an hour ago, and Louis' already bringing up the subject of last night's argument. "You always go back to England if you can."

Harry huffs, shaking his head. He’s too tired for this. "I just don't want to this year. And L.A.'s practically our home, anyway."

"Oh, God, don't say that," Louis groans. "We are  _ not _ Americans. Our home is in London, no matter how much time we spend in California."

Harry stays silent. Louis sighs. 

"We haven't been to our London home in months, and the last time we were, you didn't even go visit your mum."

"She was _ busy _ !" Harry argues, not liking what he's insinuating. 

"Fine, whatever. But I hate going this long without seeing my siblings."

Harry makes a face. "Then go see your siblings? What do they have to do with my birthday?"

"'Cause something happened last time we were in London, and whatever it was, it made you not want to go back." Louis kicks off the covers, reaches down to grab his sweater off the floor and pulls it on. 

Harry bites down on his lip, hard. He didn't know Louis realized something had happened in London. He thought, for once in his life, Louis was oblivious to his problems. It turns out Louis just didn't want to ask, because he's given up on hoping he'll actually get an answer. 

"See?" Louis says, accusing. "That face. Something  _ did  _ happen."

And he's right, of course he is. The last time they were home (because Louis' right about that, also; London will always be home), Harry had caught up with Nick. They were stoned at Nick's flat and Nick had looked him up and down and said, "Hazza love, you do realize how windy London is, right? One big gust of wind will knock you're skinny arse down to the ground."

Harry had frowned. "Shut it, yeah?"

"I'm just saying. I know you love your juice cleanses, but maybe cut down and gain a few, hmm?"

It knocked the wind of him. One second they were laughing about nothing, and the next Nick was insulting his weight, something Harry was extremely self-conscious about. He'd gotten himself up to at least two meals a day a few months ago, and so he _had_ put on a few _._ He put back on seven pounds in two months, and he hated it so much and there Nick was, calling him skinny. It made his brain hurt. 

"I didn't mean to strike a nerve, love," Nick whispered, sitting up. He frowned then, and both of them were too high to be this upset, but they were anyway. "You alright?"

Harry opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when he realized he was going to cry if he said anything. Nick came over to the couch Harry was sitting on and sat next to him, clearly concerned. 

"Just don't tell Louis," Harry blurted, and then immediately regretted it when Nick gave him a scandalized look. 

"Tell him what?"

Harry shrugged and his fingers twisted at his rings. "I dunno. Just. . . I dunno."

"Harry." Nick sounded so serious then. "If something's the matter, please tell me. You can tell me."

Harry shook his head. "I can't." He remembers wanting to just leave right then and there, because clearly he was too bloody high to think properly. He was just saying shit, stupid shit, and now Nick was concerned. 

"You can," Nick argued. "We're best mates."

"I haven't seen you in ages."

"Doesn't mean you can't talk to me now."

And Harry was extremely close to telling him, too. He was going to, but then Nick's phone went off and it reminded Harry that they weren't the only two people in the world. That if he told Nick, Nick would tell Louis in a heartbeat. Nick had always been unreasonably protective of him. 

Ever since, Harry has ignored his calls and his texts. It wasn't something huge and dramatic like Louis probably thinks, but it scared Harry terribly. Nobody else can know. He made the mistake with letting Zayn in, and he's not going to make that mistake twice. If he goes back home, he's afraid he will.

"Nothing happened," Harry says lamely. Louis gives him a pointed look, and Harry sighs, trying to buy enough time to come up with a half decent lie. "Just got in a bit of a row with Gemma. We haven't really worked it out, and -- "

"For the love of God, do not sit here and lie to my face."

Louis sounds pissed. He sounds angry and dangerous and Harry knows how much Louis hates lying, but fuck, what else is he supposed to do? He can't tell him the truth. He can't.

Louis scoffs, getting out of bed. He picks a pair of joggers off the floor and slides them on; he must not realize they're Harry's. 

"You don't get to lie to me," Louis snaps, crossing his arms. "I don't lie to you. Ever. About anything. I expect the same from you."

Harry runs a hand over his face. It's too early for this. "I'm not lying. We got into it about -- "

"Jesus Christ, Harry!" Louis roars, face red. "It was her idea to get you back to England! She's planning a bloody  _ surprise  _ party for you! Are you fucking kidding me?"

Well, fucking shit. He didn't know that. Obviously. He sits up straight, feeling a little light headed. What'd he just get himself into?

"What the fuck happened in England, Harry?" Louis asks, furious. "Why don't you want to go back, and why are you lying to me about it?"

Harry doesn't say anything. Louis somehow manages to look more angry. 

"Did you finally go fuck some bloke at some pub or something?" Louis asks, throwing his hands up. 

"When'd you become so bloody insecure?" Harry shouts back. He'd get out of bed and storm away, but he's completely naked and thinks that'd lessen the severity of it. "You're always accusing me of cheating, Jesus. I haven't been so much as kissed as someone that wasn't you since the entire time I've _ known _ you."

Louis tilts his head. "Then what happened?"

"None of your fucking business, maybe."

"You're impossible," Louis sneers, shaking his head. 

Harry laughs bitterly. "Have you met yourself?"

Suddenly, Louis looks so fucking sad, and for a moment Harry thinks he's playing him, that he's just trying to find out what happened and he's not actually as hurt as he looks. But then Louis starts to say something and his voice breaks, and Harry's heart lurches in his chest. 

"Lou," he says, feeling guilty. 

Louis shakes his head and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. "Every fucking day I swear to myself it'll be the day you finally leave me. That you’ll finally get the balls to fucking do it already. 'Cause I know you haven't been happy for over a year now, and I swear, every day it feels like I lose more of you."

Harry's throat tightens. "Love, that's not -- no. No, I don't want to leave you, I don't -- I could never, I -- "

"What did I do?" Louis asks, desperate. He sits at the end of the bed and puts his head in his hands. Harry wants to go comfort him, but he stops himself. He wants to hear what Louis has to say. "I can't figure it out. I can't figure out what I did to make you pull away from me."

Harry looks down at the bed. "I thought we were fine."

Louis turns his head to look at him sharply, but there's not a hint of anger in his eyes. It's more desperate, more pleading. "How could  _ we  _ possibly be okay if _ you _ aren't? That's not how this works, Harry, there are two of us in the relationship."

Harry feels small. Small and dumb and like a child, because this is news to him. He knew Louis was worried about him, and he knew that they argue more than they used to, and he knew Louis pretty much gave up on asking him what was wrong, but he didn't know that meant they weren't at any okay place in their relationship. 

"I'm still good to you," he argues weakly, glancing up. "Aren't I? I thought I was. I try to be."

"You just lied to me, H," Louis reminds, furrowing his eyebrows. "You always lie to me. Even when I don't necessarily know what about, I can tell by how you're acting. I don't like liars."

Defensive, Harry pulls his knees closer to his body and re-positions the blanket so it's covering more of him. "I'm not a  _ liar _ , I just. . . lie, sometimes. But about things that shouldn't matter, things that you keep nagging me about. Is that really so bad?"

Louis laughs, tight and bitter. "Yes. It is. It still counts."

"Well when I want things to be left alone, I want them left alone." He has to look away from Louis and down at the bed again, because he can't stand to see how badly he's hurting him. "You're stubborn and I'm -- maybe I can be a little closed off at times, but that's not because I don't want to let you in anymore. It's because I don't even going on, maybe, and I don't want to have to explain it to someone else because I can't. I don't know how to."

"But you told Zayn."

Harry shakes his head. "You don't know that."

"Okay, Harry," Louis says, sighing. "I give up. Again." He stands, and the way he says it sounds so final that it makes Harry fear that this is leading somewhere terrible. And when Louis tells him he's going out to drive around for a bit, Harry snaps his head up to look at him, a horrible weight on his chest. 

"I don't want you to go," he practically whimpers. "Louis, Lou, I'm sorry, okay? I know I've been shit lately, and I know you don't deserve it, and I -- please don't go. Please, just don't go."

Louis just stares at him, looking lost. 

"Can you please just stay? Please?" He sits up more, legs crossed under the thick duvet. Louis should be here under it with him, like he was only ten, fifteen minutes ago. How'd they go from arguing about flying to the UK to Harry feeling impossibly scared about the idea of Louis breaking up with him so quickly? "Go downstairs or something. Go in the backyard, go to the garden, okay, I don't care. You can be as far away from me as you want, but please don't leave."

"Why does it matter?"

Harry's lip wobbles, and he catches it with his teeth to force it to stop. He's not going to guilt Louis into having pity for him, he's done enough of that by now. After he’s sure he won't cry if he talks, he stops digging his teeth into his lip. "Because if you leave, I'm going to be so fucking scared you're not coming back."

"I'll come back," Louis promises. "I'm always gonna come back. You know that." He pulls on a shirt and leaves the room, and Harry listens to him make noises in different parts of the house. After a few minutes and Louis is still home, Harry thinks Louis' going to stay, but then he hears the front door shut and he knows he's fucked up beyond repair.

He contemplates calling Zayn. Zayn would answer, probably, and he wouldn't have to catch him up to speed. But it feels like it'd be betraying Louis more than he already has, so he decides to call Nick instead. 

Harry's not completely sure what his plan is when he calls him. It feels like he should have one, but he doesn't, because normally he doesn't have any problem talking to Nick. He's just going to clear the air, he decides as the phone rings. If Nick asks anything that's about his weight or what happened, Harry will try to backtrack and change the topic. 

It doesn't exactly happen that way. 

At first, Nick doesn't answer the phone. Harry frowns, surprised; he knows Nick is upset he's been ignoring him ( _ "haz come on i didn't mean to upset you, i miss you and your weird face"  _ was only one of many of the texts he has received since Harry's been ignoring him) and maybe it's his fault to think he deserves to be answered. He's been ignoring Nick for months; Harry wouldn't pick up either. 

Except, five minutes later when Harry's dressed and relocated to the living room, petting Clifford's soft fur, Nick calls him back. Before answering, Harry waits a few rings to try and keep some of his dignity, and when he does answer, Nick is all cheery and enthusiastic and he seems genuinely pleased Harry finally called him. 

They talk about Nick's job at Radio 1 and his new boyfriend James for a little while, and then they talk about how Harry might pick up a movie role next month, although he's undecided. He doesn't tell Nick that he fears his body couldn't handle a role so physically demanding; Harry exercises a lot, but running around a beach in heavy clothes is something completely different, especially when he's still not eating as much as he should be. They talk about Louis, about the boys, about Fiona and Henry and Matt and literally everyone and everything except their argument.

Until an hour and a half into their conversation, and it gets quiet. Not an awkward silence, just a small, natural break because they've talked for so long. Harry gets up to grab a water bottle and lays back down on the couch with the dogs, and while he's playing with Bruce's ears, Nick finally brings it up. 

"Look, Haz," he starts. "I just wanted to apologize for like, overstepping, I guess."

"Nick," Harry murmured, closing his eyes. He really thought they weren't going to do this, that the air was cleared and their small rift was forgotten about altogether. "It's fine."

"No, it's really not, is it, or else you wouldn't have ignored me for months. I'm sorry, I really am." He sounds genuine, and Harry just nods even though he knows Nick can't see it. "I know I lack a filter and sometimes common sense, but I was just. . . worried about you, I guess. And I went about it the wrong way because, you know -- emotions and communication are two things I'm not very good at."

"It's fine," he says again. 

"Harry. Please, mate, just -- I don't want to make the same mistake again by asking about it, but I just really need to make sure. You  _ are _ taking care of yourself, right?"

_ Oh god.  _ "Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Nick's quiet for a moment, although Harry knows he's struggling to formulate a response. Finally, he says, "Your mum noticed how small you looked last time you saw her, too, Harry. . . and -- and she told me not to go to Louis with it, that she wasn't too worried because whatever it was, he was probably already taking care of it, but I just. . ." He sounds stressed. "You told me not to tell Louis, and I just -- I don't like that no one is looking out for you."

Tears are burning his eyes. His own mother realized something was wrong and didn't tell him, and Nick is beyond worried about him, and Louis wants to take care of him, he does, Harry just won't let him. Harry's thought about this before, about why Louis hasn't noticed how he dropped so much weight. He's pretty sure it's a mix of naive oblivion and the fact Louis sees him every single day, and he's not going to notice a pound or two taken off every few days, especially if he's not looking for it. 

"Why are you talking to my mother about me?" he croaks. Nick sucks in a harsh breath.

"That wasn't really nice of me, I agree. But I was worried."

"I'm okay," Harry whispers. He can't be mad at Nick for worrying, and all that matters is neither of them pestered Louis about it. "Really, I am. I mean it." More okay, is what he means.  _ Not as bad as you last saw me, not eating as little, not being so obsessed with losing weight _ . He's still obsessed with his weight, he's just not all too concerned about losing it; it’s more like he’s worried about gaining it. It doesn't really make sense, does it, so he just tells Nick he's okay again. 

"You haven't been to London in ages, and I'm afraid I'm not going to believe you until I see you in person."

Harry sighs. "I'm coming for my birthday."

"Really?"

"Yes. Louis wants me to."

Nick laughs, and a weight is relieved from Harry’ chest. "Still trying to please the missus, I see."

"Always."

They talk for another half hour until Harry has to let him go because Louis is unlocking the door. Harry doesn't look over when Louis comes inside, when the dogs jump up to attack him with affection as he takes his shoes off. He's scared that Louis will look as exhausted and defeated as he sounded earlier. 

"Hey," Louis murmurs, coming over to stand behind the couch Harry is laying on and reaching a hand down to squeeze his shoulder. 

Harry still doesn't look at him and chooses to stare straight forward at the muted TV. "Hi."

"Sorry I was gone for so long. I just got caught up in everything."

"It's okay," Harry whispers, quiet. Because no, Harry doesn't appreciate Louis disappearing on him for two hours after he'd asked him to stay, but he's here now so it doesn't matter anymore. 

Louis sighs and retracts his arm. There's footsteps, and Harry thinks he's left the room until he sees him walking towards him. He sits down by Harry's feet, after picking up his legs and laying them back down in his lap. He starts to rub at Harry's ankle with his thumb when he reaches over to un-mute the television, and they sit there is silence. There's nothing to say. Louis got to say what he wanted to say, Harry's never going to be honest. It's just how it is now. 

"Did you eat breakfast yet?" Louis wonders, about a half hour later. Harry tenses before forcing him to settle down; Louis' just asking a question, he doesn't suspect anything, it's okay. 

"Not yet."

"Okay," he replies softly. "I'll make us something for lunch." Louis gets up, and for the next fifteen minutes or so, there's some quiet clattering coming from the kitchen until Louis emerges back into the living room with a cup of noodles for both of them. 

Harry's stomach immediately drops. He knew Louis wasn't going to make something healthy, but he didn't think it would be this bad. A cup of noodles doesn't take fifteen minutes to make, and it doesn't involve that much effort that Harry heard Louis making from the kitchen, so Harry can't quite believe that Louis' extending his arm out to hand him a steaming cup of fucking noodles, because they're millionaires and have other food in the fridge that isn't as unhealthy. 

He takes it, because even though he's inwardly panicking, he can't let it show. It feels like some sort of test, maybe, because Louis knows how strict Harry's diet is. He doesn't know that it's not by choice, but he typically knows better than this. If Louis wants take-out for dinner, he tells Harry in advance so Harry can make something for himself that's healthy. He probably thinks Harry's some health freak and doesn't look passed that thought. 

"Louis," he murmurs, sounding pained. He could just tell Louis that no, he's not going to eat this, but thank you.  _ Do you know how much sodium there is in these? _ he wants to scream, but Louis probably doesn't. Louis doesn't care about sodium or the fact it makes you bloat, and Harry cannot look more bloated than he already does, and there's a slight possibility he's having a small panic attack because the room seems to be getting dimmer and he's feeling dizzy. Louis glances over at him, and right, Harry called him. "Thanks," is all he says, because really, he can't let Louis any closer to the truth. 

LOS ANGELES, 21 CALIFORNIA. JANUARY 2016.

A week later, he swears he can still feel the greasy, salty noodles sloshing around in his stomach. He can't, he knows he can't, but it still feels like he can sometimes. He's been exercising in their home gym more than he already typically does, and Louis hasn't said anything about it but he's started to make himself busy in the room. Harry hates being watched while working out almost as much as he hates being watched eating (hence the home gym), but Louis normally just sprawls across the floor with one of the dogs while on his phone. Occasionally, he'll tell Harry that his form is shit or he's running weird, but he never actually moves his gaze from his phone so Harry knows Louis' just joking. 

He also goes back to one meal a day, which -- he knows is really fucking stupid. He's wasting so much hard progress because of one fucking meal, but he keeps telling himself just for a little while, just for a couple of days, but it's already been a week and he hasn't gone back up to two. 

Louis does notice this. Not exactly, but he does start becoming a bit more observant. Saying things like,  _ did you eat breakfast this morning, love? There's no dishes _ , and when Harry tells him honestly no, that he wasn't hungry, Louis quirks an eyebrow at him and say,  _ really? 'Cause you didn't eat dinner last night.  _

Of course Louis is going to notice this; there aren't as many excuses to hide behind as there were on tour. So now he gets up an extra half hour before Louis does to make himself a plate of food and only to throw it in the bottom of the trash so Louis can't see, so there will be dirty dishes and missing food, and Louis doesn't question anything after that. All it takes is a bit more effort on Harry's end to make it work. 

And then there's the ever-looming threat of the movie shoot coming up next month, which honestly scares the fuck out of him because he knows he can't do it. He can't go around prancing on beaches when he's not eating enough, and he's sure they will force him to do a physical evaluation before they start shooting, so Harry drops out. He drops out of  _ Dunkirk _ , a movie that could have massively impacted his career and brought him to new levels he's never been a part of before. 

Moments like this, when Harry's losing significant pieces of himself and his life, is when he wants to tell Louis everything. He can't keep going on like this. It's been far too long. He's almost twenty-two. He hasn't been able to eat completely normal since he was around sixteen, and he's been purposely depriving himself of food for what -- about a year and a half now? Maybe more? Has it really been that long?

Louis is laying with his back against Harry's chest, Harry's arms wrapped around his middle as they watch TV in bed. The dogs are towards the end of the bed sleeping soundly, and for a stupid second, Harry convinces himself to just go out with it. There's not point in keeping it a secret anymore, is there, and Louis can help him, or maybe get him the help he needs, because Harry needs some fucking help with this. 

Instead, all he says is, "Hey Lou?" Louis shifts slightly and hums in response. "I, uh. This morning, um, I gave up my role in that movie."

Louis stills, and Harry closes his eyes in shame while he tightens his hold on Louis. "That Christopher Nolan movie? The -- what is it called --  _ Dunkirk _ ? That war movie?"

"Yeah. That one."

"Why?" Louis asks, sounding genuinely shocked. He goes to twist to look at Harry, but Harry keeps his eyes shut and rests his forehead on Louis' shoulder. "You were so excited for that."

And yeah, he was. He really, really was. "It just didn't seem like a good time, I guess."

Louis laughs shortly. "Time is all we have right now, Haz. We're finally on break, this is your opportunity, I -- can you look at me? Please?" Harry opens his eyes, and he doesn't realize he's about to cry until he does so. "Harry," Louis murmurs sadly. He moves so he's sitting facing Harry and he runs a hand through Harry's short hair. He went as far to cut his hair for a movie he’s not even going to be a part of anymore.

"You didn't even talk to me about it,” Louis says quietly. “You -- I don't get it. You were really excited about it. What changed?"

Harry opens his mouth to respond but realizes there's no point in saying anything that's not the truth and closes it. He shrugs stiffly and tries not to squirm under Louis' worried eyes. 

"You've been working out like crazy to get in shape for this role," Louis assumes, "and now you're saying you don't want it. I don't get it."

Harry looks down, but Louis immediately forces him to look at him in the eye by gently holding his jaw. "I don't know," Harry says, even though he does. "I just. I don't want it anymore. Chris isn't mad, he says there will be other roles."

“But why, Harry? Why?"

Harry's face crumbles before he can stop it and then he's crying into Louis' neck, sharp, hot sobs racking through his body. He clings onto Louis with everything he has, because he fears he's going to ruin them one day, too. That their relationship will be sacrificed in order to allow him to keep doing what he's doing. Louis holds him just as tightly and he whispers quiet words like _ I love you _ and _ it's okay _ and  _ you're alright, whatever it is, you're alright. _

When Harry stops crying and he's just breathing shakily into Louis' wet collarbones, Louis keeps stroking his hair and holding him tight. Louis rubs his shoulder before he tentatively asks, "Does this have anything to do with -- whatever it is that's been going on with you lately. Are you pulling out of the movie because of that?"

Harry nods once. Answering seems innocent enough. 

"And does it, like. Does it have something to do with you? With your head?" Louis presses a kiss to his temple, a silent apology of not knowing how to word things more eloquently. 

Harry nods again, more hesitant this time. It's the truth. Louis deserves to know that this isn't his fault.

Tentatively, Louis asks, "Do you think it's like, depression? Or," his voice shakes terribly, "or something else? Something worse?"

"I don't know," Harry whispers hoarsely. He could very well be depressed, he has no clue. 

"Harry." Louis sounds hurt. "Can you please see someone about it? A therapist or something? Because if it's --if it's like, I don't know, bipolar disorder or really bad depression or, shit, like, something way worse, you can't mess around with that. You can't let it get worse. I can't let you do that to yourself."

Harry doesn't say anything. Louis lets out a shaky breath, and Harry knows he's probably crying and trying to keep it together. 

"Would you be willing to see a therapist, babe? Please?" And yes, Louis is definitely crying, his voice coated with tears. "If you won't talk to me, you need to talk to somebody."

"I don't know," he repeats. "I -- maybe. I don't know."

"Okay," Louis whispers, still stroking his hair. "Okay. That's all I ask. Please think about it. Please, please. You need to take care of yourself." After a few minutes, Louis finds his hand and squeezes it. "I'm sorry for accusing you of cheating. Shitty thing to say. I know you wouldn't."

Harry nuzzles his face into Louis' neck. "It's okay."

"I just knew something was wrong. That something's been wrong for a long time now. And I couldn't figure it out." He pauses before dropping another kiss to his head. "I was talking to Liam about it a few nights ago. He brought it up, the possibility of you being, like, mentally not okay, and it just made a lot of sense."

"Mentally not okay," Harry repeats, a small smile on his face. He's not okay, far from it, but he likes that Louis' trying to protect him still. After all this, after everything he's put Louis through, Louis will still try to make things sound better than they really are.

HOLMES CHAPEL, ENGLAND. 7 FEBRUARY 2016.

Being home is nice, nicer than Harry thought it would be. 

He thought it'd be suffocating to be the center of attention, but it isn’t that bad. They've been here for the last week, Louis and Harry sleeping in Harry's old room, and so far, it's brought them closer as a family. Anne has always adored Louis, and so have Robin and Gemma, but this time around it feels like Louis' less of his boyfriend just tagging along and more of part of the family. It feels a lot more permanent.

It's also made things between Harry and Louis a lot better. They haven't discussed Harry's mental health or the idea of him seeing a therapist since the day Louis first brought it up, and Harry suspects that's because it's too hard on Louis to think of him in that light. It's okay, really; Harry doesn't want to talk about it, and he doesn't want a therapist. A therapist would frown and tell him that planning on not eating at all once he gets back home to burn off all of his mum's home-cooking he can't avoid is unhealthy. Harry doesn't care -- he's thinking of trying to see how many days he can manage to go without eating once he gets back to LA.

They're going to Doncaster to visit Louis' family in two days, and from there, they'll drive to London so they can at least make sure their London home is still in decent shape. They'll stay there for two nights and then fly back to the States the next morning. Harry had told Nick he'd visit, but after seeing him on his "surprise" birthday party, he doesn't think he will. 

Nick had threatened to tell Louis that something was going on and that it had something to do with Harry's weight when he found Harry having a slight meltdown about eating his birthday cake. He was in his room, his head between his knees --he was pretty sure he watched that in a movie once -- and his fingers pulling loosely at his hair. He told his family and friends that he was going to change into something more comfortable, and he knew by the look Nick gave him as he left the room that he didn't buy it. 

Nick had been furious with him, is the thing. It wasn't what Harry was expecting when Nick walked in his room without knocking and found him crying, but Nick immediately grew angry and frustrated and cold. "You told me you got it together," Nick seethed, and Harry just looked back down and focused on his breathing. 

Before Nick walked out, he had spat that Louis was the stupidest person on the planet, leaving Harry alone to try and talk himself down from a slight panic attack. 

Other than that, though, it's been nice. Good for him. He's been eating his mother's breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he's not been exercising so much, he's socializing with people other than Louis. He knows that in the long run, when he's struggling in LA trying to starve the weight off, it'll be bad for him, but right now he has no other choice. His mum would surely notice if he wasn't eating. 

"You're thinking too loud," Louis mumbles, his lips moving from where they're pressed against Harry's shoulder. He's tucked against Harry's side, holding onto his arm. Harry thought he'd gone to sleep a little while ago. It's just them two downstairs watching the end of the movie his parents were too tired to finish. Harry's pretty tired himself, but the movie's almost over.

"Sorry."

Louis stretches as he yawns loudly, and then readjusts himself so he's deeper in Harry's side. Harry squeezes his hip in response. "I miss my mum," Louis mumbles, his eyes fluttering shut. Harry probably woke him, somehow. "Can't wait to see them. Sucks we can only be in Donny for three days."

Louis has album stuff, because he's been planning to get a start on his first solo album. He has his first writing session two days after they get back to LA, and the way things played out, they decided to spend the bulk of their time in Holmes Chapel. Harry suspects Louis made sure it happened that way for the sake of Harry.

"I know, love, but you know you can fly them out to LA whenever."

Louis hums in agreement; the girls have a blast when they're in the States, especially the younger teens because it makes them feel like adults. Louis lets them do pretty much whatever they want, and they love it. 

A few minutes later, Harry carries Louis to bed per his request. They don't finish the movie either, but it honestly wasn't that interesting so Harry doesn't feel like he's missing out on much. Louis likes to cuddle, and he's especially clingy when he's tired, which is good because they don't really have a choice in Harry's small bed. Louis grumbles something about him being a giant as he practically lays on top of Harry, but he knows Louis doesn't mind, and he doesn't either.

The next morning, Harry wakes before Louis does and decides to get up without him. He goes to the bathroom and brushes his teeth before going downstairs, and Anne is singing something Shania as she cooks what smells like bacon. He smiles softly at her and sits down at the table, stretching his legs out and looking out the window. It's still a little dark outside, and the weather's shit so there's not much to look at, but. It's still nice. Still home. 

"Hiya, baby," she greets, smiling. He tells her good morning and neither of them say anything else until she's done cooking the bacon. She sets it to the side and sits down at the table next to Harry, and immediately, Harry can sense this conversation isn't going to be one he likes. 

"What is it?" he asks slowly. She laughs warmly and reaches out to grab his hand. 

"Am I really that predictable?" she asks, still acting happy. Harry doesn't return the attitude; he can feel it in his gut she's on to him about something. "Oh, sweetheart. Don't look so worried." Apparently he's just as transparent as his mother is. "I just want to have a quick chat, that's all."

"Okay. About what?"

"You," she replies, her smile slipping slightly. "How've you been, darling? Are you doing alright?" Harry tries his best not to let his discomfort show, but his hand twitches beneath hers and she tightens her grip on him.

"I'm fine," he tells her, looking back out the window. "Are you?"

She ignores his question. "Are you really, love? 'Cause Louis has asked after you." He makes a face, and Anne immediately shakes her head. "Oh, don't start. You know he only means well. He's protective, yeah? Loves you to bits. He just wanted to know if I thought you were acting a little strange. And I do, Harry."

Harry stares out the window, face carefully blank. 

"Why'd you drop out of that movie?"

He pulls back from her like he's been burned, and her face drops. "Enough about that stupid movie," he snaps, harsher than he intends to. "It's not a big deal, Mum."

"Darling -- "

"I already heard this all from Lou," Harry interrupts with a shake of his head. He realizes he's being a little too short so he gives her a brief smile before standing up and going over to the fridge. She doesn't say anything, just watches him with her head tilted. She can't put her finger on what's wrong with him, either; Harry's beginning to think that maybe no one will ever be able to. 

He gets the same talk from Jay. The same  _ Louis' worried about you and he's asked after you _ , which thoroughly annoys Harry because Louis talking to Anne about it is different than with Jay. Jay's going to be his mother-in-law, she’s someone who he feels an intense need to please and become accepted by, even though he knows he already is. Louis can talk about their relationship with his mother, obviously, but not to this extent. This feels too private. 

Jay's a bit more demanding with it. She’s firing question after question at him --  _ Is it do with him? Are you still happy with him? What happened? _ \-- when Louis comes into the room, face red probably because he overheard the conversation. He apologizes to Harry before dragging him out of the room to go play with Ernie and Doris. 

The rest of their stay is pleasant; all of Louis' siblings adore him, and he adores them all right back, so it's nice. He can have grown up conversations with Lottie and Fizzy, reminisce about high school with Phoebe and Daisy, and completely forget about everything with the littlest twins, especially when Louis' around them. He takes care of them so well, and Harry can't stop thinking of how good a father Louis'll be one day. Harry's so, so scared he'll wind up killing himself on accident with this whole issues-with-food thing and he'll never get to have that with him. 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 19 FEBRUARY 2016.

The fighting between Louis and Harry reach an all-time all when they get back from visiting their families. It's only been five days since being back home, but they've got into it about so many different things, Harry feels like they've fought enough for a lifetime. Harry couldn't figure out exactly what was underneath Louis' skin that was bothering him so much, until Louis told him quietly this morning before he left for the studio that he really thought spending time with their families would help him, but all it did was hurt him more. 

And it's true. It really is. He's barely eaten since they got home. He had a few crackers four mornings ago, half a granola bar three days ago, and a cup of fruit for lunch yesterday. It sent his body into panic-mode, he can feel it, and he's been nauseous and dizzy and lightheaded for days. He was the closest to fainting he ever got last night, when he got up to let the dogs outside too quickly and everything went blank for a split second. It was fucking terrifying, and he cried in Louis' arms that night while Louis just held him, beyond confused. 

He's killing himself, plain and simple. He knows it's stupid, and he knows he's going to do some severe damage to himself if he keeps this up, but he can't stop. It's completely out of his control now, more so than normal, and there's no going back. 

It's around three-thirty in the afternoon when he decides to do some cardio. Harry didn't do anything in the gym yesterday because he felt shitty and didn't want to play with fire, but Louis' going to be home in three hours and he needs to do  _ something  _ to coax away the few pounds he gained while away from home. 

He changes into something more comfortable before going downstairs to the home gym, and it's probably not a good sign that he feels fuzzy by the time he reaches the bottom step, but he ignores it because he has no other choice. He gets on the treadmill, determined. 

He paces himself reasonably at first, but then he gets a bit desperate and starts to run faster and turns the machine's settings up more, and before he knows it, he's sprinting full-speed, breathing hard and running harder. He knees feel like they're made of jelly, so he makes sure to hold onto the machine just in case he needs to catch himself. He runs, and he runs, and he runs, and then suddenly his body is screaming at him to  _ stop _ , and it feels so serious he does. Harry listens to the pounding in his skull and the shaking in his limbs and stops, breathing hard. He tells himself that he'll start again in a few minutes, that he just needs to lie down for a few seconds. He takes a few sips of water before stepping off the treadmill, and almost immediately, everything goes black. 

He has no idea how long it lasts. It could be a few seconds, or a couple of minutes, or maybe even longer. When he comes to again he's laying flat on his back and the lights are far too harsh. Pain radiates at the back of his skull, and his headache feels a hundred times worse than it did before, and he feels so, so dizzy. Every time he moves even slightly, his brain whirls.

He's shaking with fear and maybe something else when he sits up, and immediately, his shaky hand reaches to search the back of his head. He feels something wet and his heart sinks, and he doesn't have to see his hand to know he's bleeding. He whimpers pathetically as he prods at it a bit, but the wound doesn't seem to be too big or too bloody (although there  _ is  _ a lot of fucking blood, and he desperately tries to keep reminding himself that his mum always said heads bleed the worst, and that they usually look worse than actually they are). He sits there, bloodied fingers resting against the floor, with his heart racing and chest heaving. 

He needs to call Louis. He knows that. Being alone right now seems stupid, especially when he still feels so shitty. But if he calls Louis, he's going to come home straight away and he's going to have so many fucking questions that Harry's going to have to answer. 

So he calls Zayn instead. Shakily, he finds the number in his phone and calls, waits for him to pick up. As he does, tears collect in his eyes and it doesn't take long for them to start running down his cheeks. Zayn doesn't answer, so he calls again. 

This time, Zayn answers. "Haz? You alright?"

Harry closes his eyes at the sound of his voice, but opens them when it makes the dizziness worse. Was Zayn's voice always so deep? He can't remember. It's been a really fucking long time since he’s heard it in person. 

"Harry, mate. You're scaring me."

When he tries to respond, it comes out as more of a whimper. He tries to collect himself before he realizes his attempts are futile, that he's a mess and there's no stopping it right now. "I fainted," he forces out, his voice trembling and breaking. 

"Harry, God." He sounds a little disappointed, but more so worried. 

"I'm so fucking scared, Zayn," he cries. "It's just gotten worse -- _ I've  _ gotten worse, I -- god, I fucking fainted, and 'm bleeding, and I don't know what to do, I don't know what to  _ do _ ."

"Wait, you're bleeding? How bad? Where?"

Harry lets out a pitiful sound. He just wants to be held right now, to be kissed and coddled. He wants to be protected from himself. "My head. I don't think it's that bad."

"Is Lou with you?"

Harry's so tired. "No. He's at the studio." He puts his head on his knee, and that feels a little better so he keeps it there and tries to take deep breaths. It doesn't really work. 

"You need to call him. Now. He needs to come home."

"I can't tell him, Zayn, I can't -- "

"You've just fucking fainted, you bloody idiot," Zayn snaps, sounding beyond angry. "It'll just get worse from here on out. Your body doesn't just give in on itself for no reason, Harry. I know you aren't that fucking stupid."

Harry doesn't say anything because crying is so much easier right now. 

"Harry," Zayn begs. "Please. Please, mate. Tell him to come home. You shouldn't be by yourself right now. You could faint again, or something worse."

"Okay," Harry agrees, voice small. "I know. You're right. Okay." He sits there for a few seconds, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "I should go. I'm sorry for calling you."

"Don't be, you idiot. But yeah, you really need to call him."

"Okay. Okay. I will."

"Call me if you need anything, yeah? I still care about you, mate."

"Alright, I will."

And then he hangs up, because he's not going to sit there and exchange awkward goodbyes with someone who used to be one of his best mates. Harry knows immediately he's not going to call Louis, though. He'll text him, yes, but he's not going to face hearing his voice.

_ come home please _ , he types with wobbly fingers. He decides against adding an 'as soon as possible' because he knows it'll ignite more worry than necessary, so he clicks send and just waits, head resting on his knee. Three minutes later, Louis texts him back. _ gimmie fifteen mins tops, you alright?? _ And Harry says yes because there's no reason to get Louis all wound up when he's driving. 

He doesn't move for a good ten minutes, but then he decides he probably should because if Louis finds him in the gym, Harry fears he'll connect the dots too quickly. Harry's still not sure if or how he's going to come clean, so he peels himself off the floor and slowly gets up the stairs, not wanting to test the waters too much. He feels a little less shitty, but his head is still pounding (and bleeding) and he doesn't want to take a tumble down the stairs and die. 

He's sitting at the kitchen table with his head down when Louis gets home, and when he hears the keys in the door he starts crying again because he knows it's over. All the lying, all the sneaking -- it's all going to be over, and the next few months are going to be hell, and he did all of this to himself. He's such a fucking idiot. 

"Hey, hey, no crying," Louis says softly, immediately coming over to him. The dogs are strangely calm; Clifford doesn't leave Harry's side, and Bruce only sniffs at Louis and doesn't bark. Harry stands up before Louis gets to him so he can get a proper hug, and Louis gives him one. He holds him, strong and soothing, while Harry cries into his neck and clutches onto his jacket. 

After a moment or two, Louis tenses. "Are you bleeding?" He pulls away a little and stands on his tippy toes to get a better look, and Harry just lets himself be fussed over, because clearly he can't take care of himself anymore. Louis starts cursing and turns him around, and fingers start poking and prodding where it hurts and Harry tells him to stop.

"What happened?" Louis asks, sounding slightly hysterical. Harry remains silent, and Louis sighs loudly before grabbing his hands and pulling him towards the bathroom. 

Louis tells him to sit on the closed toilet and Harry does, feeling like a scolded child. He tries not to be too annoying as Louis treats the wound, but it fucking hurts and he feels so fucking stupid that it's hard not to. 

"Shh, I know it hurts, darling, but give me a minute, will you?" 

After another minute or so, Louis tells him it doesn't look that bad and he's pretty sure it's fine, that it's just a small gash and a bump. The word gash makes Harry wince, and all he can keep thinking is what the fuck is he going to tell Louis?

Louis leads him to the living room by the wrist and Harry goes, still silently crying, and Louis pulls them down to the couch. When he looks at Harry, he looks determined and scared and angry, and Harry just stares back with watery eyes. 

"What happened?"

Harry closes his eyes. He's so fucking screwed. 

"Please don't lie to me. Please just tell me the truth. I won't be mad, I promise. Not if whatever it is getting you hurt."

"I can't," Harry whimpers out. He  _ can't.  _

"Why not?"

"God, Louis," is all Harry says, because he doesn't know how to tell Louis that this will make Louis think that Harry’s a weak, selfish person. And maybe it's true, and maybe Louis already thinks that. 

Louis cups his jaw, his thumb brushing over Harry's cheek. "You need to be honest with me. I'm not taking no for an answer anymore."

Harry's eyes flutter open, and Louis' looking at him with so much concern it almost makes his heart give. His eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth is set in a straight line, his blue eyes stormy and wide. 

“I fainted," Harry whispers, voice barely there. Louis hears it though, and he looks like he's been slapped. 

"What? Why?" Harry doesn't say anything, and Louis looks impossibly more worried. "Harry. Come on. How do you feel now?"

He sniffles, looking down. Louis pulls Harry towards him, and Harry goes willingly, placing his head on Louis' lap; maybe this way, with Louis stroking his hair and holding him, Harry can tell him the truth without looking him in the eye. 

"Okay," he finally answers. "Just -- still a little lightheaded. And my head hurts."

Louis places a light kiss to his cheek, and Harry closes his eyes. "Do you know why you fainted?"

Right. Here they go. "Yes," he whispers. He's fucking terrified. The only person he's explicitly told is Zayn, and that's simply because he knew Zayn wouldn't freak out. Louis' definitely going to freak out. And Louis' going to feel betrayed and lied to, and Harry's going to deserve anything that comes to him. 

"Please talk to me, baby."

Tears burn behind his closed eyes. He fumbles around to find Louis' hand and he squeezes him hard, and Louis squeezes back just as hard. Harry's not alone, he has Louis, and Louis makes everything okay. Louis can help him. He just needs to tell him. 

"Lou." His voice trembles on the single syllable. "I'm just. . . really fucked up."

"No," Louis says immediately, sternly. "You aren't. Don't say that. You aren't, darling, you're just -- you're sick, I think, but that's okay. Whatever it is, I can help you. You just need to tell me what it is so I know how to help."

_ Just say it just say it just say it just say it just say it _

"I -- " he stops, voice catching in his throat. Fucking hell, just  _ say it. _ "I can't eat," is what he says, and he doesn't know exactly why he says it because it's not completely the truth. But now that he's said it, he can't take it back, and the hard part's over with, isn't it?

He can feel Louis tense beneath him, can hear the sharp intake of breath. His hand is nearly crushing Harry's, but Harry doesn't care because he's holding him back just as tightly. "Love. Sweetheart. What -- what do you mean?"

Harry starts crying then, and he feels so fucking stupid and small and tired -- God, he's so tired. He just wants to sleep. Louis wraps his other arm around him and holds him close, whispering things Harry can't quite make out because he's crying and having trouble breathing and he just wants Louis to fix it, to fix him. 

"I don't -- I don't know what's wrong with me," Harry manages, although the words are choppy and unclear and breathless. Louis doesn't say anything, and Harry feels desperate to explain himself. "I know it's my -- my fault, I know that I'm doing this to myself, but I can't stop, I can't stop, Louis, I can't -- I got better, I did, I was, I was doing okay, and then -- I don't know, I don't know, Louis, but I can't stop, I can't -- I just -- I don't -- "

"Breathe, Harry," Louis tells him, interrupting him. And no, Harry needs to tell him  _ everything _ so Louis can  _ fix it. _

"No, Louis, I -- I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me, I don't -- " and maybe Louis' right, maybe he does need to breathe, because when he opens his eyes for a split second the room spins, but he's just so fucking  _ tired _ . "I didn't mean to lie to you, I just couldn't -- I couldn't tell you, Louis, I  _ couldn't _ . You're probably so -- so disappointed and I'm sorry, but I'm just so scared, I'm so scared, I -- "

"Stop talking," Louis demands, and when Harry ignores him and starts to talk again, to ramble on about something else, Louis places a gentle hand over his mouth. "Please, please stop talking. You need to calm down, darling." But now that Harry's not talking, he's sobbing again, and it makes Louis sigh and that's just -- 

"I'm sorry," he cries around Louis' hand, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"God, Hazza," Louis breathes. He moves him so Harry's sitting in his lap now, legs horizontal over Louis' and his body leaned against his. Harry tucks his head against Louis' neck, still squeezing his hand, and cries and cries and cries until he seriously can't breathe anymore and he's gasping for breath. 

"Harry, Harry, deep breathes, baby, calm down."

But Harry can't, is the thing, and he's petrified he's going to pass out again. He digs his nails into Louis' shoulder in an attempt to ground himself, but his chest still heaves and his lungs still struggle anyway. 

"You haven't had a panic attack in so long, baby," Louis whispers sadly, even though Harry knows that's not true. He's pretty sure he had one at his birthday party, but Louis doesn't know that so Harry doesn't correct him. 

"I'm sorry," he stutters out, and Louis hushes him and tells him to breathe again, starts saying in and out until Harry listens and can keep up. It takes a few minutes up that --  _ in, out, in out _ \-- for Harry to breathe normally again, but his head is killing him and he's still not entirely certain he's not going to faint again. 

"I'm so scared, Louis," he whimpers, and Louis shushes him, cradling the back of his head like a mother would her child. 

"Lets go lay down in our room, okay?" Harry nods against his neck and then Louis' picking him up, and Harry tenses and squirms and Louis just shushes him again. The dogs follow them to their room, feet soft against the carpeted areas. Louis sets him down in the center of the bed and the dogs jump up, Clifford laying behind him and Bruce laying towards the bottom. The bed dips as Louis sits next to him, and he starts to run his hands over Harry's hair again. "Will you look at me please?"

Harry, who still has his eyes shut, shakes his head. He presses his head against Louis' thigh and finds Louis' hand again, and this is all he wants. Louis petting his hair, Louis keeping him close, Louis fixing whatever's wrong with him. 

"I'm sorry," he whispers, just because he feels like he has to. 

"Don't apologize," Louis whispers back, and Harry tries to ignore the fear that's evident in Louis' voice. 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 20 FEBRUARY 2016.

It's not something Louis can just fix, and it's when Harry really, truly understands how fucked this all is. 

Louis' never not been able to fix something. Anxiety about a show, grieving the loss of a loved ones, arguments with his friends; Louis just fixes it all. He's always been able to. At the very least, he can give Harry the tools he needs to fix a situation himself, but not now, not with this. Louis doesn't know what to do. 

Harry has to explain everything to him, which is probably the hardest thing he's ever had to do. He has to go through it all, can't leave out a single detail or Louis will stop him and ask himself. Harry can't look at him while he talks, and his voice shakes and his eyes burn and he feels the most embarrassed he has in his entire life. Louis doesn't say anything for a long time once Harry's finished, and Harry just has to sit in the suffocating silence because he's kept Louis out of his head for years now, and he can't just ask to be allowed into Louis'. He doesn’t deserve to be let in.

"Zayn should've told me," is the first thing he says, about fifteen minutes later. They're laying in bed, and it's the day after Harry fainted. Louis cleaned up the blood on the gym's floor last night. "He knew, and he should've fucking told me."

"He was going through stuff himself. And I told him not to. I trusted him"

"So you didn't trust me?"

"Of course I did," Harry says quickly. "I've always trusted you."

"You say you trust me, but you didn't tell me this for so long, and now you won't even look at me." He doesn't sound angry, just really, really hurt and confused. Harry forces himself to look at him, and Louis' eyebrows are furrowed and his lips are in a straight line. 

Harry clears his throat and glances back down at his lap. He wants to curl into Louis' side, but out of the fear he'll be rejected, he doesn't. "I'm so sick of all this, Louis."

"I just can't believe I didn't notice." He sounds defeated. "How did I not -- you are skinnier, now that I know. How much do you weigh?"

"Louis. . ."

"Harry."

"I'm not underweight," Harry tells him honestly. "I was, a few times. . . but even then, it wasn't too much under. But I'm not underweight right now. And I gained a lot of weight back when we were away from home."

Louis sighs. "Is that why you didn't want to go to London?"

Harry scrubs a hand over his face. He's tired and stressed and sad and _ hungry _ ,  _ shit _ . Louis was too scared to force him to eat last night, and they haven't gotten out of bed yet. He's not going to be able to handle Louis pressuring him to eat. "Nick started asking questions. I was scared."

"How the fuck did he notice and not me?" He sounds so, so mad, and for the first time Harry realizes how badly this is going to weigh on Louis. He's going to feel guilty. Paranoid. Harry did that to him. 

"I'm -- "

"Stop apologizing, Jesus Christ," Louis murmurs, shifting on the bed, making the distance between them greater. "I need to, like. I need to figure things out right now."

Harry shrinks back. It sounds final, like Louis' quitting on him. Louis stands, and Harry can't help the desperate way he flings out his arm to reach for Louis, to keep him close. He grabs his arm, and Louis sighs. He comes closer and holds Harry's face before kissing him on the forehead and murmuring, "I'm just going out for a smoke. I'm not going anywhere."

Harry clings to his wrists. He's fucking terrified. "Please don't tell anyone," he whispers, knowing Louis' going to go run and tell his mum. Harry was right, he can tell by the way Louis' face falls, but he nods nonetheless. Harry lets him go, and he watches Louis' retreating figure until it stops by the door and Louis turns his head slightly so Harry can see his face. 

"You don't get to lie to me again," he says, voice thick. "I want to be mad, but I can't be, so just -- no more lying."

"Okay," Harry whispers. "No more lying."

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 25 FEBRUARY 2016.

He's pretty sure there's never been a time in which Louis was more angry or disappointed with him than he is right now. The fights leading up to this were nothing compared to this, except maybe preparation. 

He's barely even talked to him these last five days, and when he does, it's always about his eating issues. Besides that, barely anything. Louis doesn't even really look at him anymore; it's too hard. He's too fucked up, and so is his fucked up body. Harry doesn't mind that he won't look at him, he doesn't, because every time he does, Harry had the overwhelming urge to cover himself and cower away so Louis can't see anymore. 

Louis cries a lot, too. The first two or three days he tried to be sneaky about it, tried to appear strong for Harry, but now he just cries whenever he feels like it. In bed late at night, while they're watching a movie, while he's cooking. Because he cooks now, food that Harry doesn't even eat. Even when Louis tries so hard to make it healthy, Harry can't do it. He can't have someone else make his plate and say  _ here, eat _ , and then take it and eat it. 

So yeah, Louis cries a lot around breakfasts and lunches and dinners, because no matter how hard he tries, Harry won't budge. Can't. He  _ can't _ . 

You can't undo seven years of a dangerous habit -- habit, not a disorder, he hates the way Louis makes him use that word -- in less than a week. And you certainly can't break it by just pleading. 

Harry wakes up feeling bone-deep sick. His head hurts and his stomach is cramping terribly, and now that Louis knows, Harry would go to him and tell him so he could make it better, but it's three in the morning, and Louis' sound asleep next to him. 

Louis' been trying so hard to understand and heal Harry that he needs all the sleep he can get, so Harry gets out of bed and leaves their room to let Louis be. 

He has no idea how he ends up in the home gym, but he does. 

Louis won't let him work out at all, not even if it's only walking on the treadmill for a few minutes. He got all up in arms about it two days ago when Harry was going stir-crazy from sitting around all day and he just wanted to move around a bit.  _ You're fucking batshit if you think I'm going to let you do anything that could even possibly overwhelm your body _ , and Harry's pretty sure that's also why they haven't had sex in almost a week. 

The blood's all cleaned up, and Harry almost wishes it wasn't. It'd make more sense if he broke down because he saw his blood on the floor and it was too much, but that's not what happens. He breaks down, yes, but over nothing. Well, not nothing -- his boyfriend is afraid of him, he's afraid of himself, he's not getting better, this isn't something either of them can fix easily, he's sick and so, so tired. So many things that all blur into one giant blob of nothing. 

He cries and he cries and he cries. He balls up in the middle of the floor, surrounded by bulky work out equipment and a concerned Bruce, and he cries. So hard, for so long. 

He thought everything was hard before. . . just look at him now. He's even more fucked up. Telling Louis was supposed to fix it --  _ Louis  _ was supposed to fix it, supposed to make it all better. A week ago he could at least hold himself together and smear on a fake smile, but now he can't even do that. He's a grown man crying on the  _ floor _ , for fuck's sake. 

It's by luck alone that Zayn's awake at this time, and that he still gives enough of a shit about Harry that he replies to Harry's message. 

_ Are you awake? _

_ yeah i am what's up? everything ok? _

Harry cries harder. Zayn used to be one of his best friends, and now the only time they speak is when Harry can't keep it together anymore. And not just Zayn anymore; he hasn't talked to Liam or Niall in a while. They still talk to Louis, and maybe they just see Harry has an extension of Louis so they think it doesn't really matter if they don’t talk to him directly, but it does. Harry wants to desperately for one of them to reach out. 

_ I fucked everything up Zayn _ , he types, and he's about to delete it because it's so goddamn melodramatic. And then he sends it, because that's how he feels and he doesn't give a fuck if it's melodramatic. He has a right to be dramatic when his brain is clanking around in his skull and his stomach is chasing itself around and he's bawling in the middle of the floor. 

_ call me.  _

Harry presses his traitorous head against his knee and sucks in a deep breath. He doesn't want to talk to anyone right now, not really. He just wants to lie here, maybe melt into the floorboards if they'll have him. He doesn't have a choice, though, because Zayn calls him.

"What's going on?" Zayn asks in place of a greeting. He sounds worried, and judging by the random breath he releases, he's smoking. 

Fucking hell. The person Harry goes to when he's struggling with his bad habit has about fifty of his own. 

"Nothing," he croaks out. His voice makes Bruce lift his head from the floor, and Harry shushes him shakily and pets reaches over to pat his head once. It's so much bloody effort to move. 

"Nothing? Then why're you texting me at four o'clock in the morning saying you've messed everything up?"

Harry pulls the phone away from his cheek to check the time, and yeah, he's been laying here for an hour. Jesus fucking Christ. He puts the phone back to his ear and hiccups. "I told Louis. Told him everything. After I fainted. And everything's so much harder now."

Zayn doesn't say anything for a long time, and then, "Shit."

"He's so disappointed in me, Zayn. You said it yourself: he's not the type of person you want to disappoint, and he's so, so upset with me. I'm making him insecure and paranoid and guilty -- shit, he feels so fucking guilty. I shouldn't have told him."

"Hey," he says sharply. "Yes, you should've. You're hurting yourself, H. Slowly killing yourself. And I -- I know that it's scary right now, okay, but in, like, a year from now, you'll be happy and healthy, and you'll know you didn't make a mistake."

Harry closes his eyes. "I don't give a fuck about a year from now."

"You should. You need to. Because you're talking really scary right now and I need you to be able to see that there's hope."

Nothing Zayn is saying is helping. If anything, it's making him more angry. "My relationship is in shambles, my body is close to caving in on itself, I fainted less than a week ago, and I feel so sick right now that I'm pretty sure if I even tell Louis he'll want to take me to the hospital, where they'll probably 5150 me and I'll be stuck there, and then the press will pick it up and I'll be the washed up one of the five of us, the one who went off the deep end and lived up to their celebrity status, and -- "

"Jesus fucking Christ, stop talking like that or  _ I'll  _ get you 5150'd _ myself _ ."

The anger disappears, and then he's crying again, and Zayn sighs heavily. 

"I think maybe it's time to go get Louis, Hazza." He says it so delicately, so softly like Harry's going to break. Jokes on him, Harry's already fucking broken. And he knows that he's only being so goddamn depressing because he feels like shit, that when this feeling goes away, he's going to feel so ashamed of himself for talking like this and feeling sorry for himself, but he doesn't care about that right now. 

"Okay," Harry whispers. "I will."

He won't. 

"Promise me?"

"Yeah. Promise."

Zayn sounds hesitant when he says, "Alright, mate. Call me whenever, yeah? Love you," but he disconnects the call so how worried could he really be?

Harry has no intention of getting Louis, but he also had no intention of falling asleep there, in the middle of the gym's floor, yet that's what he does. One second he's thinking about what he can go get to eat that won't make throw up, and the next he's sound asleep. 

And then the next he's being shaken away by frantic, clawing hands. 

He has no idea what's happening for a good few seconds. When he initially comes to, he's thinking,  _ why's the bed so hard, why's the light so bright, _ and  _ who the fuck is touching me? _ and then he blinks and looks around a bit and oh. He fell asleep on the gym floor, and Louis' the one shaking him awake. Louis, who has no color in his face and tears in his eyes and keeps saying his name in this petrified tone. 

"What, what?" Harry mumbles, swatting away Louis' hands and Clifford's unhelpful sniffing. He sits up slowly; his headache is gone, but his stomach is still in knots. He's about to say so, until he notices how  _ devastated _ Louis looks. 

"I'm okay, I just feel asleep," Harry whispers, scooting forward so he can set his hand on Louis' arm. "Love, I'm -- "

"The fuck are you doing down here?" Louis snaps, and he shoves Harry's hand off him. He gets to his feet, cursing and wiping at his cheeks. He looks down at Harry, his face a mix of crumpled fear and hot anger. "The fuck were you  _ doing _ ?"

Harry gapes at him, unsure how to handle this. "Nothing," he says, honestly. For once in his life he's being honest. "Seriously. I was just -- I woke up feeling sick, and I came down here to, I don't know, relax, I guess. It's nice and cool, and -- "

"You said no more lying," Louis hisses, narrowing his eyes. The anger flashes back to hurt and Louis' face crumples as he drags his hands through his hair.

"I'm not lying, Lou, I'm not. I just laid here for a long time, and then I called Zayn, and then -- "

"Oh, yeah. What's that about, by the way? I get a call from Zayn at almost five in the morning, and he's all fucking upset, saying that I need to go find you right now, that he's scared for you, and -- what the fuck did you say to him? And why'd you call  _ him _ , when  _ I  _ was right next to you in bed?"

Harry blinks at him, trying to figure out the timeline here. If it's not five yet, that means he was only asleep for twenty, thirty minutes. And Zayn was already worried enough to call Louis and have him check on him. That's. . . scary. 

"Louis," he starts, and Louis snaps at him to stop lying. "I haven't even said anything yet," Harry nearly shouts, feeling awfully defensive. Louis thinks he's a liar. Louis doesn't trust him. 

Louis crosses his arms. "You're seriously trying to tell me that you just came down here, to the _ work out room _ , to _ sleep _ ?"

" _ Yes _ ."

"You didn't, I don't know,  _ work out _ at all?"

His eyes and his throat are burning. " _ No _ ."

"You're a goddamn liar," Louis hisses, eyes sharp and glaring, before turning around and going up the stairs. The dogs follow, and then Harry's left all alone, trying to figure out what the fuck to do. 

Louis doesn't believe him, and it stings but Harry deserves that. He lied to Louis for years, of course Louis isn't going to believe a word he says anymore. It can still hurt though, right? Because it does. It hurts really, really bad. 

He pulls himself off the floor and goes up the stairs, thankful that he's not feeling too dizzy right now. He finds Louis at the kitchen table, sucking harshly on the end of a cigarette and tapping his fingers insistently on the table. He's agitated, and it's very clear. 

"Don't smoke in the house," Harry hears himself saying. That's a rule, Louis not smoking in the house.

Louis looks at him sharply. "You're seriously going to tell me not to smoke when -- "

"Yes," Harry interrupts, far too fragile to be able to withstand whatever he was going to say next. It was going to be nasty, he knows Louis. When Louis just keeps looking at him, Harry stomps over and plucks the cigarette out of Louis' lips before ashing it against the ashtray. He ends up burning the side of his finger in the process, and it makes him wince and pull away but he ignores the pain for now. 

Louis stares at him, angry and stunned. Harry tries to stand his ground. 

"It's bad for the dogs," he huffs, seconds away from crying. If he says it's bad for Louis, he'll scoff and say he doesn't care. If he says it's bad for himself, Louis will blow the fuck up and tell him that, _ clearly _ , Harry doesn't care about his own health, either. 

"You said no more lying," Louis says, voice cold. "And yet you just lied to me, and now you want to patronize me. It's fucking comical."

"I didn't lie -- "

Louis' face turns bright red and he stands, the chair flying backwards, and Harry's so overwhelmed with everything that he takes a step back and goes to shield himself from Louis, because for a second it feels very possible that Louis might -- might hit him or shove him or get in his face and shout. He realizes, belatedly, what he's done, and the look on Louis' face is gut-wrenching.

It's quiet. Too quiet. And then Louis whispers, "I would never hurt you, Harry. I would -- why the fuck did you just flinch away from me?"

It's hard to swallow. It's hard to blink without crying. And it's even harder to see Louis so upset and confused. Harry knows Louis would never hurt him, he knows that. But that doesn't mean he was positive of that a second ago. If it's his body's natural instinct to protect itself, something is wrong here. Something other than Harry's fucked up head. And they need to fix it before it gains anymore fuel. 

"Because you're scaring me," Harry whispers, trying not to feel guilty for being truthful. "You're -- you're acting all frantic and calling me a liar and smoking in the house and I -- I don't know. I know you'd never hurt me, but you're still scaring me."

Louis glances off to the side, silent. 

"I woke up feeling sick and I didn't want to wake you," Harry explains, trying to squash the lying part. He hasn't lied to Louis at all in the past few days. "You've been so stressed with trying to take care of me, so I decided to let you sleep. I don't -- I don't exactly know why I went down there, but I did, and I just. . . cried. A lot. For, like, an hour straight. Just sat on the floor and cried, feeling sick and like a failure." He coughs into his fist, hating how exposed he feels. "I texted Zayn on a whim. I didn't think he'd actually be up. But he was, and I was worrying him, so he called me and we talked and I -- I don't know. I said some shit, and he had me promise to wake you and I said I would and I didn't. And then I fell asleep. He must've known I wasn't going to actually get you, so he called you." He crosses his arms and sighs, his headache returning. Not from the starvation this time, but from the stress of all this. "I lied to him, not you."

All Louis does is not once and sit back at the table. He scratches at his head before leaning it against his palm, his elbow against the table. He glances at Harry, eyes tired. "I thought you were dead."

His stomach plummets. "Lou. . . "

"I did. I seriously did. I saw you laying there, not moving, and thought -- I thought you over-exerted yourself, or hit your head again. I thought you were fucking dead, I really did."

"Well, I'm not," Harry mumbles, feeling small. What do you say to that? Even in the moments that follow, he can't come up with a better response. 

Louis leans back in the chair and shrugs, eyes blank as they stare at the table. "Yeah, well. You will be. If you keep this up, I mean. You didn't eat anything yesterday, Harry. Not a single bite of anything. And the day before that, you ate half a piece of toast."

"And the day before  _ that _ , I ate a whole fucking meal for you, so you can shut the fuck up."

He doesn't know where that anger came from, but he doesn't regret it. He can't keep letting Louis believe that if Louis asks enough, then he'll eat. That's not how this works. 

Louis doesn't take the bait. He doesn't really react at all. He just looks straight down at the table, looking like he's somewhere else, somewhere far away. "If I have to go to your funeral," he whispers, voice hard, "I will hate you forever. And I mean that."

"Threatening me isn't going to get us anywhere, Louis."

Louis snorts quietly and shrugs. He stands, pushes his chair in, and looks at him. "At least I'll be able to say I did everything I could to help you."

Harry rolls his eyes, ignoring the panic Louis is igniting in his stomach. "I'm not going to die, Christ. I've been okay for six years, you do realize that, right? Yes, it's bad right now, but it gets bad sometimes, and then I fix it. It's. . . it's taken longer for me than usual to fix it, I won't lie about that, but it'll sort itself out."

"Okay, Harry," Louis says, dazed. He's walking towards the direction to the stairs. He must want to go back to sleep. "Whatever you say."

Harry watches him go back upstairs, leaving Harry by himself down here. A week ago he thought Louis could fix all of this, and now look at them. It's almost like the universe is laughing in his face, saying,  _ the only one who can fix this is you _ .

Four months later.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 27 JUNE 2016.

"I just. . . I know he cares, and I know he's trying really hard, but I just." Harry sighs, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. Doing this thing -- therapy -- has brought to his attention how bad he is at articulating his emotions. He's been seeing Josie for three and a half months now, and he still struggles to communicate with her. It frustrates her, he can tell, though she never says anything. "I feel like he thinks I'm broken, I guess. And, like. Like I can't be fixed. Or -- I don't know." She smiles and him encouragingly and he thumbs over his rings before trying again. "He doesn't see me anymore, I suppose. He just sees my ' _ illness' _ , or whatever. He only sees how I could be hurting."

"Are you still hurting?" she asks, looking at him carefully. Ironically, he doesn't really come here to talk about the recovery of his eating disorder, that's far too personal. That's for him and only him to work out, not even Louis. He'll talk about what it was like during it, and how it's different now, and his fucked up relationship with food, but he refuses to talk about relapses or struggles or desires to just stop eating again. He mostly sticks to how Louis irritates the fuck out of him sometimes, which makes him feel guilty later. 

"I. . ." he trails off before sighing again. "It's hard to, like. Hard to know if I'm at, like, a healthy weight again. Well, no. I  _ am _ at a healthy weight, but I can't tell if it's what's 'normal' for me because I've never not struggled with this." He frowns a little. He wishes there was some number he could reach that'd make him feel relieved, like  _ yes, finally, I'm back to where I started, _ but there isn't, because he started out unhealthily. Even before he fully finished puberty, he was struggling, so he doesn't know what weight he's comfortable with to call himself officially recovered. 

"Have you spoken to your doctor about it?" Harry nods. "And what do they have to say about it?"

"That I'm at a healthy weight." He shrugs slightly, scratches at his arm. "But I wasn't even underweight when I was doing it most of the time, so."

"But if your doctor is telling you that you're healthy, and you know you got there using healthy exercise and diet, shouldn't that tell you you're. . . " She looks hesitant. "Shouldn't that feel relieving?"

Maybe. Probably. And it does, in some ways, but in other ways, it feels like he's still fucking everything up. "It's hard to be relieved when Louis constantly makes me feel like I'm still sick," he says, and he hates himself a bit for blaming this on Louis, but it's how he feels. 

Josie frowns. "I think it's important to note that nobody ever really officially recovers completely," she says. "Your eating disorder is something you're always going to have to carry with you. But I wouldn't call you sick anymore, I don't think." 

Harry glances at the floor, unsure of what to feel anymore. 

"I think you should talk to him," she suggests, and Harry doesn't even try to hide his eye roll. It's what she tells him every single appointment. "I know, Harry. I know you don't want to, but I think it'll be beneficial to both of you if he tells you why he's so concerned still."

Harry huffs out a breath. "I already know why. He thinks he failed me." He leans back against the chair and crosses his arms. "I know him. I know what he's thinking. That's not the problem."

Josie purses her lips. "Do you think that's the problem?" she asks. Harry glances up at her, confused, so she clarifies. "Maybe you two are too codependent. Maybe your communication is lacking because it feels pointless, when really, it's still important, even if you already knows what he's going to say."

She's alluded to that before, them being too codependent. And he's pretty sure she's right, especially since the hiatus of the band. They have friends outside of each other, but none of which they'd rather spend their time with. The only real time they're apart is if Louis fucks around at some festival for a few days, and it's never longer than three or four days. But he's not sick of Louis, could never be, so he doesn't really see the issue. 

"Maybe a break could do you well," she continues. "Maybe a little time apart is what you need to strengthen your relationship, which would then help your recovery process."

Harry shakes his head, not letting himself get flustered by the idea. It's bogus, he knows that, so there's no point in getting worked up over it. "We don't need time apart," he tells her. "But maybe you're right about the communication thing."

A few minutes later after pointless small talk, their time is up and Harry leaves after thanking her. The entire way home, he entertains the idea of if he could starve himself without anyone noticing again, and it's not a serious thought but it tires him anyway. Therapy just brings all that shit to the forefront of his mind. And worrying about being hungry was so much easier than worrying about Louis constantly fussing over him, as bad it sounds. The former gave him something to fixate on, and all the latter does it make him feel guilty.

As always, Louis nearly pounces on him when he gets home. He's always so eager to hear what Harry and his therapist talked about, as if he stumbles on epiphanies every time he sees her. He doesn't, and he never has. Josie doesn't really help, and she never has. And that's not to say that therapy doesn't work, it just doesn't work for him. Not about this. He's had this wrapped tightly in his hands for years; a stranger's hands only gets to unwind as much as he lets them. 

After all the questions, Louis sighs, wrapping his arms around his middle. "You're not having a good day today, are you?"

Harry squints at him. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child, please. You know I hate that."

Fuck Josie. He communicates just fine. 

Louis gnaws on his lip, his eyes glancing over Harry's body nervously, and Harry knows what he's going to ask next. He knows it, he knows it, and he fucking hates it. 

"What'd you eat today?" Louis whispers, clearly guilty about asking but not guilty enough to not ask. 

Harry huffs at him, and bends down to pull off his shoes. He tosses them by the door, not hard but loud enough to make Moose come back in the living room to investigate. He hates the way Louis doesn't trust him. Despises it. It's been four fucking months. He's fine now, truly. He eats three meals a day -- healthy meals, obviously -- and he only weighs himself once every two weeks and he exercises the normal amount now. Most people can't get there in only four months, but Harry has, and Louis' still so fucking paranoid all the goddamn time. 

"Do you realize how hard it is to overcome an eating disorder?" he snaps.

"I -- "

"You don't," Harry interrupts, answering for him. "But I can tell you that it's basically feels like I'm going against some, like, primal instinct every time I eat. Every time I look in the mirror and see the weight I've gained. And I -- I don't mind my body, okay? I don't -- I don't even really mind my weight. But I really, really need you to realize that I've gotten through this so fucking fast. Faster than most people do."

Louis looks sad. "I do realize that."

"Then  _ trust me _ ," Harry pleads, throwing his hands up. "Don't ask what I've eaten every day, and don't do it under the guise that you're actually worried I haven't. I ate breakfast  _ and _ lunch with you. And I'm going to eat dinner with you in an hour. So would you please,  _ please _ stop treating me like -- like I'm this little delicate thing you have to coo at every time you see."

Louis looks mildly offended as he scoffs. "You are not perfectly fine. You might be back on track now, but there's a lot of fucking shit you have to work through still. Don't be pissed at me for checking in."

"I'm fine," Harry nearly shouts. "I'm healthy. My therapist told me twenty minutes ago the same thing."

Louis narrows his eyes at him. "Then why haven't you told your mum about it?" He says it gently, because he knows that it's immediately going to create havoc in Harry's head. It does. "Your mum needs to know. Your sister, too. The boys."

"The band doesn't need to know anything," Harry seethes. "Me being okay or not okay effects them in no way anymore."

If Louis takes the bait, this argument will shift somewhere completely different. Harry wants it to, almost. Arguing with Louis is tiring, yes, but Harry's waiting for Louis to realize how hurt he is that Niall and Liam don't reach out to him more. Louis, unsurprisingly, doesn't take Harry up on this argument, and instead sighs. 

"I don't like being the only one who knows," he mumbles, guilt written on his face. "I don't -- I love that you trust me best, okay? And I'm so, so glad you let me in, and that you've let me help you with this, and that you've been so resilient throughout this whole thing. But it's not right that I'm the entirety of your support system. You deserve, and maybe even need, more than just me."

Harry swallows thickly. Every time he's reminded that his disorder is something bigger than Louis can handle, it still strikes him to his core. "Nick knows," he says weakly. It's a lame defense. All Harry told Nick is that his diet got a little out of control but everything was fine now, and  _ hey, did you want to grab a pint next time I'm in London? _ Nick took the olive branch, and neither of them have brought it up since. 

Louis purses his lips. "Okay. But I'd really like if your mum knew too."

"We weren't even planning on going back to England for another month or two. Do we really need to have this conversation right now?"

"Fine," Louis agrees. "But you're telling her when we go back."

HOLMES CHAPEL, ENGLAND. 2 SEPTEMBER 2016. 

They've come to a compromise, of sorts. 

Over the last two months, Harry's proved to Louis that his progress wasn't as fragile as Louis thought it to be. It got a little shaky sometimes, like when Harry had a meltdown in the bathroom at a fancy restaurant about a month and a half ago. It involved Louis, Harry, James Corden and Ben Winston, and menus that didn't include the amount of calories that were in each dish. Normally Harry's prepared for that, but for some reason, it had hit him hard and then everyone else was ready to order and the waitress was staring at him expectantly so Harry looked down at the menu and picked the first one he saw, a pasta of some sort. And it wasn't healthy, it wasn't healthy at all, and Louis could tell Harry was freaking out, so he excused them both and led Harry to the bathroom where Harry had to be soothed like a child. Aside from that and a few other instances, Harry's been doing well. And not a fake, short-lived kind of well, either. Genuinely decent. 

And the best reward of it all is that he's managed to gain back some of Louis' trust, which is why Louis budges and compromises with him. 

For Harry, it's a shit compromise, but he didn't expect anything more. He's not in Holmes Chapel to tell his mum, not exactly. He's here to tell Gemma, who's going to then tell their mum, and then Harry will talk to her about it. He can handle telling Gemma, but the idea of telling his own mother that his brain is all out of sorts and watching her face fall is something he can't handle. 

Louis offers to be there with him while he tells Gemma, but Harry quickly declined. That'd be too stressful. So it's just going to be Gemma and Harry, alone, in the backyard of their childhood home while Louis distracts Anne and Robin inside. It's not foolproof, but it's going to have to work. 

It's nice outside for a September night. Summer is still clinging onto their country, so it's fifty-five degrees fahrenheit and calm. There are some clouds, but not a lot. He can spot the moon, glowing bright in the sky. It comforts him for a reason he can't quite comprehend. 

"Your hot chocolate's getting cold," Gemma points out, motioning to the mug in Harry's hands. They've been out here for about ten minutes already, and Harry's managed to do is make his hot cocoa go cold. 

He wraps his hands more firmly around the mug and takes a sip. It's lukewarm. "I don't mind it," he tells her, shrugging once. 

Gemma sighs. She reaches over and grabs the mug from his hands and places it on the table in front of them. They're on the patio, sitting on the swing chair. She wanted to swing, but his stomach is rolling so violently already with nerves that he asked her not to. 

"You said you wanted to talk to me about something," Gemma reminds. "So, come on then. You'll feel better once you finally say it."

He looks at the moon again. It's still there, still shining just as bright as the last time he looked at it. "It's kind of serious, Gem."

"Okay. That's okay." 

He nods and wipes his nose on the shoulder of his coat. It's scarier telling someone when his mind is clear. He didn't have a choice in telling Louis, but right now he has a choice. Right now his brain is working properly enough for him to be able to think about how he wants to word things and how she might react. It's a lot to deal with. 

"Did Mum, um." He stops and fumbles with his rings, and then starts again. "Has Mum ever mentioned anything to you about her worrying about me? In, like, the past year or so."

Gemma keeps her face perfectly still. She's always been so good at staying neutral and keeping her emotions in check until it’s an appropriate time. "Why? Has she needed to be worrying about you?"

"I'm just asking. Has she?"

She nods once, looking awfully uncertain about admitting that to him. 

"What did she say?"

"Just that you were a bit off the last few times you visited," she tells him, voice stripped of any emotion at all.

Harry nods slowly and looks down at his hands. He's not really seeing, just avoiding eye contact. It's hard admitting failure, especially to someone he admires so much. Louis would tell him that he hasn't failed at anything, but he's pretty sure he has. 

He thought about what he was going to say to her the whole drive over, so he tries to hold on to that as comfort. 

"I've. . . For the last few years, um, maybe even longer than that, I've been. . . struggling with, um. With an eating disorder. I'm -- I have an eating disorder, I mean."

He doesn't plan on looking at her at all, but she doesn't respond once he's finished. There's no way she didn't hear him; he said it loud enough, and very, very slowly. She couldn't have missed any of it. So he chances a look, and she still has that stoic expression on her face, and she looks like she's not going to do anything else until he explains more. 

"For a while, uh. For a while it got really bad. Probably a few months before Mum noticed did the worst of it start. It got really scary for a minute there, and I -- I got help. I went to Louis and he helped me. I've been seeing a therapist for, like, six months now? And I think it's actually starting to help me a little."

She doesn't say anything, just keeps staring. He keeps talking, thinking maybe she's waiting for something. 

"I'm healthy now," he tells her, sounding a little more desperate than he did before. "Physically, and, like, mentally I have a little ways to go, but. Physically, I'm cleared. I'm healthy again." 

Gemma looks down at her lap. Her jaw is clenched shut and she clears her throat quietly. She's still trying to remain this emotionless wall of steel, but it's not working anymore. Now she's just working out the responsible thing to say. He knows his sister, knows how her mind operates. 

"How -- how long?" she asks, voice airy and tight. 

"Um. The -- it got really bad in the past, like, year and a half, I think? Probably a little longer. But I've been struggling with this since I was sixteen, I think."

She swallows visibly, and guilt explodes in his stomach. He wishes he wasn't doing this to her, that he wasn't so fucked in the head. When they're both home again, it's supposed to be lighthearted and fun and -- and Harry just had to throw this onto her. 

"I'm sorry," he says, and he voice cracks terribly. He cringes at himself, at the tears burning his eyes. Louis was wrong; this isn't going to help him progress at all. Nothing he feels right now is positive. 

"Don't apologize, Christ." She grabs his shoulders and pulls him towards her for a hug, and he kind of just topples into her. He lets himself be comforted, even though he needs to be comforting her right now and not the other way around. She rubs his back and holds the back of his neck tight. 

"I had no idea," she whispers. She clears her throat. "I'm -- I'm so sorry you've had to go through this."

He shakes his head against her shoulder. "I did this to myself."

"Don't be an idiot," she snaps, pushing him back gently so she can look at him in the eye. He hates how upset she looks. "That is no way your fault."

"I should've told someone about it years ago, when it was more manageable." He glances down, ashamed. "I started going days without eating, Gem.  _ Days _ . And it -- it wasn't that bad in the beginning. It wasn't that serious. I should've told someone sooner. And I definitely should not have been lying to Louis for so long."

She sighs quietly and lets out a small, "Oh, love," before bringing him back in for another hug. She runs her fingers through his hair this time. "So Louis knows, then?"

He nods against her shoulder. 

"Who else knows?"

"Just you and Lou," he mumbles. "Nick knows a little. And, like. My therapist knows, obviously."

"You have a therapist?"

He nods again. "Louis didn't give me a choice."

She squeezes him tighter and asks, "So he's still taking good care of you, then?" Her voice sounds strangled, like she's trying her absolute best not to cry. He's made his sister cry, fuck. He squeezes his eyes shut and fists her sweater in his palms, clinging. 

"Yeah. Always."

It's silent for a long time, long enough for Harry's throat to stop burning and for his eyes to stop stinging. He's just laying in her arms, slumped into her, and staring out at their backyard. He realizes, belatedly, that he's missed the whole point of this conversation. He pulls away from Gemma and clears his throat. She hurriedly brushes off the tears on her cheeks and gives him a strained smile. 

"I need you to tell Mum for me," he says. Her face twists up, and Harry quickly tries to reason with her before she can decline. "I can't tell her, Gemma. I can't. But she needs to know. I just -- I just need you to rip off the band-aid for me. You can tell her and then just leave, and I'll take care of the rest, I don't care. I just can't say those words to her."

She exhales shakily and glances to the side. He's asking the world of her, and she's actually contemplating giving it to him. "I don't know, Haz."

"Gemma. Please."

She doesn't say anything. He grows desperate. 

"If I don't tell her now, I'll have to tell her when I come back to England for Christmas. I really, really don't want to do that."

"Tell her what exactly?" she asks shakily, turning back to look at him. She looks scared. "What -- what exactly do you want me to say?"

He swallows thickly and wipes the back of his wrist on his forehead even though he's not sweating. He's just really, really stressed right now. He's going to go back inside and tuck himself so far into Louis' side that he's going to get lost. "That I'm anorexic," he says, the weight on his chest not lessening any. He hates that word so fucking much, and Louis keeps telling him that, eventually, it won’t sound so terrifying. "That she was right to worry. That I'm okay now."

"Are you? Okay now, I mean."

He nods. "I am. Ask Louis if you don't believe me. I'm not. . . I have bad days, but for the most part, I'm alright."

She's going to say something else, but before she can, the door slides open. Harry feels himself clam up immediately, like he does when he notices a camera was on him. Anne comes out on the patio, smiling. She wraps her cardigan around her a little tighter and nods to them. 

"Loves, Robin's on his way to grab some take-out. We just ordered two cheese pizzas for the five of us, and then Louis wanted a salad. Is there anything else you want?"

Louis doesn't eat salads, Harry thinks numbly, before realizing that the salad isn't for Louis, but for him. It makes him relieved. He actually finds it in him to smile when Louis comes out on the patio after her, looking panicked since he was supposed to keep her inside. 

"That's fine, Mum," Harry tells her, smiling. He stands and squeezes Gemma's shoulder before walking towards them. Louis wraps a protective arm around him and presses a quick kiss to his jaw.

"Are you coming in, Gem?" Anne asks, motioning inside. Gemma looks over at them, and she's doing a terrible job at pretending to be okay, but Harry doesn't hold it against her. 

"No, I'm okay. I think I'm going to stay out here for a little longer." She smiles tightly. "The fresh air feels nice."

Anne frowns. "Are you sure, love?"

"I'm fine, Mum."

"Okay. Harry will fetch you when Robin's back with the pizzas. Come in if you get too cold, please."

She nods once, and the three of them go inside. 

Dinner is nice and exactly what he needed. It feels like he's actually present and focused on his family instead of other things, like he had been the last few times he saw them. Right now, as he eats his salad and nibbles on the piece of cheese bread Louis gave him, he's thinking about the story Robin told and how happy his mum looks and Louis' firm hand on his thigh, not food. Well, he's always thinking about food, but it's not  _ all  _ he's thinking about anymore. 

Gemma comes in from outside about ten minutes into dinner. Her runny nose and red eyes are blamed on the cold, but both Louis and Harry know that's not the case. She sits down, smiling briefly and pained. It looks like her mind is going a hundred miles per hour, and Harry's the center of every single on of her thoughts. It's unsettling. 

Eventually, they all wind up in the living room around the TV.  _ Dirty Dancing _ is playing, and even during Harry's favorite bits he doesn't pay attention. He's too focused on Louis, on being close to him and touching him everywhere and his smell and his warmth and just -- just everything. He's pressed tightly against his side, one leg thrown over his lap and his head resting against Louis' shoulder. He wants to be closer, but for one, he's not sure that's physically possible, and two, their family is all around them. 

Throughout the whole movie, Gemma is quiet and withdrawn. It's after the movie that Harry finally accepts he's ruined her entire week that was supposed to be spent with them being a happy family. He hugs her tightly, too tightly, before bed, and she hugs him back with as much strength. 

"I'll tell her in the morning," she whispers into his ear, just as he's about to pull away. Harry freezes, his eyes darting over to Anne, who's beaming and oblivious. He's about to ruin her week, too. 

Before he can freak out too much, Louis pulls him up the stairs and tucks him into bed. He holds Harry fiercely, and whispers how proud of him he is, over and over and over again. It never gets old, because even though it doesn't feel great, Harry telling Gemma was good for his and Louis' relationship. Maybe that's selfish, but Harry can feel their trust thickening again, and it's incredible. He never thought they'd get to this point again. 

Anne is  _ furious _ after Gemma tells her. Harry expected a lot of reactions -- crying and shock and fear -- but not anger. Not from his mother, and definitely not directed at Louis. 

"You should have told me," she hisses, wagging a finger at him. She hasn't even looked at Harry since the two of the came downstairs, which was only a few minutes ago. Gemma had texted him to come down, not mentioning how fucking  _ pissed _ their mother was. 

"Mum, I asked him not to," Harry tries to reason. He stands in front of Louis for some stupid, primitive reason, not liking how insecure he looks.

"I trusted him, we -- we trusted him, we trusted all of those boys to take care of you, and you -- you," she shakes her head, like she can't believe it, "you weren't eating. You weren't -- how did no one realize he wasn't eating?"

Again, Harry answers for Louis. "I ate," he says. "I ate enough to make sure people wouldn't question things. And after the tour, I made it nearly impossible for Louis to realize anything was off, so don't blame him. It's not his fault."

She finally, finally looks at him, and Harry almost wishes she hadn't. She looks like she's going to cry and scream and fall to her knees all at once. "He was supposed to be looking after you," she whispers, sounding heartbroken. 

"He was. He still is. He just didn't know that was an area I needed looking after in."

"But he's your  _ boyfriend _ ."

"And you're my mother," he says, wincing at how cruel it sounds. She needs a heavy dose of reality, and that's all he knows to say that'll give her it. He's not blaming her, not at all, but she needs to understand that Louis' not to blame either. "I've kept this from you just as long as I've kept it from everyone else. You didn't suspect anything, so of course he didn't either."

She shakes her head. "No. No. I noticed you were skinnier last time you came here, I even called Nick to see if he noticed the same thing."

"You would've have noticed anything if you saw me everyday," he argues calmly. This is nowhere near how he thought the conversation would go. "Please, please don't blame him, Mum. I promise you, he had nothing to do with any of this."

And then she's crying. Immediately, Harry rushes towards her and wraps her up in his arms, much like Gemma did to him last night. He shushes her and promises that he's alright, that he's not sick anymore, that she doesn't have to worry anymore. None of it is enough to console her, and then Robin walks in on them and they have to explain the situation to him as well. Robin takes it the best out of all of them, not because he doesn't care as much as they do, but because he can sense Harry can't handle anyone else being upset right now. 

Things settle down within the next hour. But they're all so, so sad, and Harry's the attention of it all, and after a day of being watched like a hawk every time he goes into the kitchen by literally everyone, and nervous side-glances and a suffocating atmosphere in general, both Louis and Harry decide maybe this trip needs to be cut short. 

"I don't want to upset them more," Harry whispers. It's the night after Anne found out, and Louis and Harry are cuddled up in bed. It's only eight o'clock, but Harry couldn't take being downstairs anymore. Anne and Robin  _ would not stop  _ looking at him eating during dinner, and it made Harry shrink so far back into his old shell that he couldn't eat the rest of his plate. He ate maybe five bites, and he was still hungry, but he was a hundred percent certain that he would throw up if he ate anything else. Louis quickly took care of the situation and took Harry and his plate upstairs. It took Harry a solid hour to even think about eating again, but the plate's empty now, and that's all that really matters. 

"They'll understand, love."

And they'll have to, because the next morning, Gemma practically begs Harry to have two bagels instead of one, and Harry can't do that. He can't have people watching him eat or critiquing his food choices, he seriously, seriously can't. So he and Louis drive back home to London that night, and when they get home they're both starving but Harry is so far in his head that all he can convince himself to eat is an apple and a slice of cheese. If he had stayed the rest of the four days, Lord only knows what his eating habits would be like when they got back.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. 23 SEPTEMBER 2016. 

Telling the boys -- because Louis was right, they need to know -- is much easier than Harry thought it'd be. He expected them to be angry or sad or something, but both Niall and Liam are the peacekeepers of the band, so of course they aren't going to be anything but stoic. 

Niall sucks in a sharp breath and looks away while Liam nods a few times and wipes his hands on his jeans. "Oh," Liam says, still nodding. "That's. . . oh. Okay. Thanks, um. Thanks for telling us, I guess."

Niall nods in agreement, but doesn't look to him.

And then it's just the four of them, all quiet and not looking at each other. This is awkward, and Harry hates it. If this exact conversation took place a few years okay, there would be tears and meltdowns and cursing, but now, they're all calloused and too good at hiding their emotions. After a heavy thirty seconds, Louis sighs loudly.

"Lads," he says sternly. "Please tell me that's not all you're going to say to him and that you're using this time to think up heartfelt messages that he's going to write down and hang up somewhere."

They look caught out, and Harry feels incredibly small. They don't care, he thinks. It terrifies him when he doesn't immediately tell himself that that can't be true. What if it is? What if him and Louis made themselves look like huge idiots by thinking this news was something worthy of an in-person meet up. He could've just sent them both a text.  _ I've had an eating disorder for the last like seven years, I felt like you should know, see you whenever we accidentally bump into each other next x. _ That would've been less painful than this. 

It was easier to tell them than it has been the few times he’s told anyone else, but this. . . this is probably the hardest reaction he’s had to deal with. 

"It's fine, Lou," Harry murmurs, standing up. They're at Niall's, and Harry desperately wishes they just had everyone over at theirs. He wants to hide under his blankets, but all he has to escape to is a bathroom. He's not even sure what door it is anymore. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Second door on the left, right?" Harry asks, walking towards the hallway. 

Niall sounds dazed when he corrects, "No, it's the third." That's all he says, though. Nobody, not even Louis, tells him to wait and sit back down. 

He doesn't take long in the bathroom. If he did, Louis would come looking after him and he'd look weaker than he already does. God, Liam and Niall probably think he's an idiot. 

A stupid, naive part of him thinks that when he gets back, Niall and Liam will come barreling towards him with hugs and apologies and kisses, but that's not what happens. He's not ashamed enough to not admit that it doesn't crush his heart, the way the two of them glance at him like he's a stranger instead of someone who's supposed to be their best mate. 

"Can we go?" Harry asks Louis, his voice cracking terribly. It's so embarrassing that it makes tears jump to his eyes and fuck, he just wants to come home to his dogs and hide forever. 

Liam looks guilty, while Niall has the audacity to say, "I thought we were going out for pints later."

It burns something awful in Harry's belly. 

"Well, I'm sorry if I don't exactly feel up for that anymore," he snaps, tears leaking out of his eyes without permission. He wipes them away quickly, determined to hold onto this anger. "God, Niall. I just told you something I've been keeping from you the entire time I've known you, something that could have and still could very easily kill me, and you're -- you're worried about bloody pints?"

Niall's eyes widen, like he genuinely didn't realize that was going to hurt Harry. This all feels wrong, like they're having completely different conversations. 

When nobody moves, Harry crosses his arms over his chest and looks at Louis. "Lou, can we please go?”

Liam frowns. "You don't have to go, mate, you -- "

"Oh my God, Louis, please take me home," Harry nearly shouts. He feels stupid and rejected and scared, so scared, because if he doesn't have Liam and Niall as best mates anymore, who does he have? And Harry's not stupid; it's his fault they're so detached from him, because Harry detached himself from  _ everyone  _ during the last tour, even Louis. The only reason why Louis is still here is because they're dating. 

Louis doesn't move, seemingly frozen, so Harry curses under his breath and marches forward to grab the keys out of Louis' jacket that's been discarded on the floor. As he storms out, Louis tells him to wait -- he sounds like he's worried Harry's going to drive away without him -- but Harry doesn't, he just keeps going. 

He starts the car, turns on the heat, gets into the passenger side, and then cries. 

It's not as dramatic as it sounds, because the tears running down his cheeks aren't accompanied by sobs or hiccups or a panic attack, they're just tears. Disappointed, frustrated tears. He feels like such an idiot. He thought telling his mum was bad? At least she cared. At least she hugged him. 

All Harry wanted from them was a hug. 

The tears have stopped by the time Louis gets to the car. Harry's completely silent when Louis gets inside and sits down in the driver's seat. He doesn't even look at him, too scared that when he does, he'll see rejection there, too. 

"They love you to bits, Hazza," Louis says softly, and immediately, Harry shakes his head. 

"They don't care."

"But they do. They really, really do. They didn't know what to say."

Harry glares at him, because he doesn't like Louis defending them when that literally couldn't have gone worse. "I want to go home," he says, voice icy.

Louis swallows visibly. "And if you really want to, we will. But Liam and Niall are both in there, thinking they've completely shattered you, so if you could please go back in there and try again, I'd -- "

"I don't care if they're upset."

"And love, I get that, I do." Louis leans forward and smiles warmly at him. He's trying desperately to fix this, and he doesn't know how. "But you need to understand that's not fair to them."

Harry reels back, appalled. "Not fair to  _ them _ ? Louis, fuck. I just put my deepest fear in front of them and they -- they didn't do  _ anything _ ."

"They didn't know what to do, okay, and that's understandable," Louis says calmly. "It's not everyday that your best mate comes to you with that type of news. There's not a manual on how to handle something like that."

"I just wanted a hug," Harry admits pathetically. He rolls his eyes at himself and glances out the window angrily. He doesn't want his boyfriend defending the people who hurt him, especially not so soon after. 

"If you go back in there, you'll get one -- two. You'll get two. I promise."

Harry bites down on his tongue and shakes his head. "I'm gonna look stupid, going back in there after storming out like that."

"No, you aren't," Louis denies. "You're going to look like you're being the mature one and giving them a second chance. Because, babe, I'm very aware that they should've handled that way differently, and I'm disappointed in them. I really am. I'm not at all trying to tell you that you did anything wrong, because you didn't.  _ They _ did."

He goes back inside, his head lowered, shoulders hunched and hands hidden in his armpits. He feels so stupid, like a schoolchild coming to accept a forced apology from a bully. And he knows Niall and Liam aren't bad people, but they did make him feel small and defensive.

He does get his hug, though, when he comes inside. He gets two of them. Liam comes straight towards him first and flings his arms around him and just clings, harder than Liam's ever, ever hugged him before. And Niall is only a moment behind, but it's evident he's been crying, so it doesn't feel as sweet. 

"I'm sorry, Hazza," Liam whispers. "For -- for reacting like that and for not ever noticing. We all. . . we all knew that something was up with you on the last tour, and if anyone of us pushed for an answer, it -- 

"I would've ran for the hills in the complete opposite direction," Harry mumbles, strengthening his grip on Liam's shirt. "It's nobody's fault. Nobody should've noticed, no one's to blame, nobody did anything wrong, it just -- happened. It's okay."

"You seeing someone about it?" Niall asks, sounding worried. 

Harry nods into Liam's shoulder. "Yeah. I have been for months now. I'm doing okay right now. That's the only reason why I told you."

Liam sniffs and pulls away slightly. He's close, and Harry can see Liam's eyes dart all around his face. "Zayn should be here too. Wait, no, that sounds wrong. This is your shit, you get to tell who you want, but -- I just meant that, like. He should know too."

"He already does," Louis says for him. Harry lets his eyes slip shut briefly. Louis' never going to get over that. "He was the first to know."

"Oh," Liam murmurs, and then it's quiet and awkward and Harry's squirming under everyone's gaze. 

Finally, Niall says, "So, are the pints for tonight still on?"

(Niall gets blackout drunk with Louis not that far off. Liam has a few shots, and Harry only has a few beers. It’s the first time in a long, long time that Harry feels completely detached from his problems. They’re still there -- they will always, always still be there -- but they aren’t standing right up against his skull, banging their fists against his head, demanding his attention. He’s no longer just a guest in his own mind. He’s just Harry, and now’s the time he gets to figure out who that person really is.)


End file.
